NASA Can Navigate Space Using Pulsars — What’s Next?

A pulsar is a dead, distance and dense star that emits pulses of radiation with remarkable regularity. Astronomers first witnessed pulsars half a century ago, and since then, have detected many more. The object’s signal was so consistent that scientists nicknamed it LGM-1, short for “little green men.” They thought that perhaps objects like LGM-1 could be used to navigate further missions to deep space. Last week, Keither Gendreau, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a team of NASA researchers announced that they had finally proven that pulsars can function like a cosmic positioning system. But the pulsar navigation’s greatest benefits will actually be felt farther out in space. Today’s deep space missions navigate using a global system of radio antennas called the Deep Space Network, writes Wired. But DSN has some major limitations, including the further away a spacecraft gets, the less reliable the DSN’s location measurements become. Pulsar navigation can address all of the DSN’s shortcomings.