Interstellar Navigation Demonstrated for the First Time With NASA's 'New Horizons' (newscientist.com) 17
Three space probes are leaving our solar system — yet are still functioning. After the two Voyager space probes, New Horizons "was launched in 2006, initially to study Pluto," remembers New Scientist. But "it has since travelled way beyond this point, ploughing on through the Kuiper belt, a vast, wide band of rocks and dust billions of miles from the sun. It is now speeding at tens of thousands of kilometres per hour..."
And it's just performed the first ever example of interstellar navigation... As it hurtles out of our solar system, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is so far from Earth that the stars in the Milky Way appear in markedly different positions compared with our own view... due to the parallax effect. This was demonstrated in 2020 when the probe beamed back pictures of two nearby stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, to Earth.
Now, Tod Lauer at the US National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in Arizona and his colleagues have used this effect to work out the position of New Horizons... Almost all spacecraft calculate their bearings to within tens of metres using NASA's Deep Space Network, a collection of radio transmitters on Earth that send regular signals out to space. In comparison, the parallax method was far less accurate, locating New Horizons within a sphere with a radius of 60 million kilometres, about half the distance between Earth and the sun. "We're not going to put the Deep Space Network out of business — this is only a demo proof of concept," says Lauer. However, with a better camera and equipment they could improve the accuracy by up to 100 times, he says.
Using this technique for interstellar navigation could offer advantages over the DSN because it could give more accurate location readings as a spacecraft gets further away from Earth, as well as being able to operate autonomously without needing to wait for a radio signal to come from our solar system, says Massimiliano Vasile at the University of Strathclyde, UK. "If you travel to an actual star, we are talking about light years," says Vasile. "What happens is that your signal from the Deep Space Network has to travel all the way there and then all the way back, and it's travelling at the speed of light, so it takes years."
Just like a ship's captain sailing by the stars, "We have a good enough three-dimensional map of the galaxy around us that you can find out where you are," Lauer says.
So even when limiting your navigation to what's on-board the spacecraft, "It's a remarkable accuracy, with your own camera!"
And it's just performed the first ever example of interstellar navigation... As it hurtles out of our solar system, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is so far from Earth that the stars in the Milky Way appear in markedly different positions compared with our own view... due to the parallax effect. This was demonstrated in 2020 when the probe beamed back pictures of two nearby stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, to Earth.
Now, Tod Lauer at the US National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in Arizona and his colleagues have used this effect to work out the position of New Horizons... Almost all spacecraft calculate their bearings to within tens of metres using NASA's Deep Space Network, a collection of radio transmitters on Earth that send regular signals out to space. In comparison, the parallax method was far less accurate, locating New Horizons within a sphere with a radius of 60 million kilometres, about half the distance between Earth and the sun. "We're not going to put the Deep Space Network out of business — this is only a demo proof of concept," says Lauer. However, with a better camera and equipment they could improve the accuracy by up to 100 times, he says.
Using this technique for interstellar navigation could offer advantages over the DSN because it could give more accurate location readings as a spacecraft gets further away from Earth, as well as being able to operate autonomously without needing to wait for a radio signal to come from our solar system, says Massimiliano Vasile at the University of Strathclyde, UK. "If you travel to an actual star, we are talking about light years," says Vasile. "What happens is that your signal from the Deep Space Network has to travel all the way there and then all the way back, and it's travelling at the speed of light, so it takes years."
Just like a ship's captain sailing by the stars, "We have a good enough three-dimensional map of the galaxy around us that you can find out where you are," Lauer says.
So even when limiting your navigation to what's on-board the spacecraft, "It's a remarkable accuracy, with your own camera!"
Triangulation (Score:2)
for the win
Avoid Wolf 359! (Score:2)
This was demonstrated in 2020 when the probe beamed back pictures of two nearby stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, to Earth.
They better not be sending a probe to Wolf 359. It's not uncommon that I find myself yelling, "All hands abandon ship! I repeat, all hands abandon ship!" before I either get jabbed in the neck by Borg assimilation probes or the Enterprise explodes and I wake up in a cold sweat.
Trump admin is protecting you (Score:2, Troll)
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Re: Trump admin is protecting you (Score:2)
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This is why the big beautiful bill has cut funding for this project next year. You don't have to worry about the Borg if you don't look for them.
Well, that approach has certainly worked with regards to Russia's state-sponsored hackers, amirite?
Proof of concept is one thing (Score:2)
Generation ships would never work (Score:3)
Theres zero reason for generations born in space to have any interest in the original goal set by people who may be long dead anyway. Assuming they dont go insane or suffer debilitating effects of space flight and all die young. It makes great sci fi but ignores the reality of human nature both physical and emotional.
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Theres zero reason for generations born in space to have any interest in the original goal set by people who may be long dead anyway.
Would that really matter? It would be safe to assume members of those new generations would still have "I want to stay alive" as their primary goal and "I would prefer not to be alone, if possible" as a secondary goal - which in practice would align pretty well with the overall long-term goal of such missions.
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Theres zero reason for generations born in space to have any interest in the original goal set by people who may be long dead anyway.
If the goal is to find a new planet to call home I think that would resonate with a lot of the people on board a generational ship.
Assuming they dont go insane or suffer debilitating effects of space flight and all die young.
Yes, maintaining scholastic discipline when you know you're just part of a long chain of generations is probably the key problem after solving the closed ecology & space travel issues.
It makes great sci fi but ignores the reality of human nature both physical and emotional.
I haven't read any sci-fi where generational ships have worked completely as intended - it's essentially almost an accident that they arrive and can do anything at all mission related, mainl
Re: Proof of concept is one thing (Score:2)
Re:Proof of concept is one thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Just send 1M robotic space probes to 5k targets at
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Scifi counters these risks with deep sleeping people, but what super brilliant 20 year old is voluntarily going to sign a life away, their kids and their grandkids up for what could be a stuck in minivan sized living quarters for the next 100 years.
With potentially billions of 20-somethings on Earth to choose from for such a trip there's likely enough of them willing to volunteer to make this trip happen. What might be a selection criteria is some medical condition which makes having children impossible, or perhaps having some genetic anomaly where they'd pass on some undesirable condition if they did have children. A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that as many as 15% of couples are infertile, that sounds high but even if its only 1% then that's a
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Actually traveling to other star systems beyond the one we live in is impossible with current technology
FTFY. The actual feat is theoretical and we lack to proper technology to do it but that doesn't mean it's impossible because the roadblocks have real solutions.
The problem of fuel can be solved by using antimatter. Our present ability to generate antimatter sucks but that doesn't mean there isn't a far more efficient method. By using antimatter reactions to accelerated to relativistic speeds, the problem of time and supplies is exponentially reduced as time comes to a crawl near C for the passengers. Resour