NASA Is Building An Intergalactic GPS
Vela Pulsar This is the Vela pulsar, located about 1,000 light-years from Earth. One NASA team is looking to use pulsar light in a GPS-like system that would help spacecraft navigate anywhere in space. NASA/CXC/University of Toronto/M. Durant, et al For your next family trip to Mars You're probably already used to getting great GPS coverage in many of the places you visit. Now get ready for GPS in space. NASA is working to build a navigation system that would work anywhere in our solar system and beyond, IEEE Spectrum reported. Spacecraft now depend mostly on radio signals sent from Earth to navigate, as Spectrum explains. As craft get further away from Earth, however, that method becomes less accurate. So NASA is looking to use signals from neutron stars-super dense, super high-energy stars at the end of their lifetimes-to locate ships in deeper space. Certain neutron stars, called pulsars, emit powerful beams of light...