[time-nuts] Pulsars make a GPS for the cosmos

[Magnus Danielson]

Hi Tom,

On 09/28/2013 07:49 PM, Tom Knox wrote:
> I am just thinking out loud on this, But it seems you could use carrier phase from plain star light since the light spectrum from stars have spikes and notches which are constant and using the same concept as the Hubble Constant a spacecraft could determine speed, direction, and position. Like the GPS system it will take a very complex algorithm but does not seem beyond today's technologies.
You can use the spectrum to some degree. You can't really do carrier
phase, as the sources isn't coherent. The light from a particular star
is created from heat and not in laser conditions. Even the spikes coming
from atomic resonances isn't coherent either.
> And yes all these sources have some stability issues but if they are linear they can compensated for and if random they can be averaged out. This is why our Cesium, Rubidium, and GPS references have quartz. The bottom line is we have already been able to determine there are a number of Pulsars that rival today's best Cesium clocks and their signals cover vast reaches of space.  So it seems inevitable we will learn to utilize this existing Galactic Positioning System of the gods.
It's being looked at. I believe I saw something about the original
statement on stability had been somewhat debunked, but it was still
impressive.

Cheers,
Magnus