Pulsar based GPS: Galactic Positioning System

There'd be one way to start proving or disproving this theory...

map every known pulsar, and every known... let's say- Sun like ours. Every sun which should be capable of supporting life- and see how many are within... say 10-20 LY. If there's a match of even 75%, I'd be convinced that they are artificial beacons.

Are there any in that range around our sun? maybe 50 LY? I may be wrong on the LY- what's the closest pulsar to us? Find it, then check to see if these things are right within a range of a few LY of each sunlike star....

Originally posted by Phage
What am I missing (in regard to navigation)?

It sounds like using pulsars for triangulation is no different than using stars for the same purpose. Apollo missions took sightings on known stars to determine their position just as mariners have for centuries (albeit more acurrately).

Pulsars emit burst of energy at different time intervals making each object unique and easy to differentiate from each other and background radio clutter.

I think therein lies the distinct advantage that one would find in using pulsars as beacons.

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
She also mentioned that apparently one of them, PSR B1257+12, has planets. She also mentioned they shouldn't be there. The planets shouldn't have survived the star's expansion, especially when the star went supernova.
[edit on 28/2/09 by MikeboydUS]

Interesting observation!

I wonder how the planets are able to hold up against the super-energetic jet of x-rays emitted from the pulsar??

I would just like to point out that needing a galactic version of a gps would mean that you actually travel in space, but I think their method of travel is instant through something like a wormhole. In that case you would only need to know how to find the wormhole or created it if thats what they do.

Originally posted by Enphamus
I would just like to point out that needing a galactic version of a gps would mean that you actually travel in space, but I think their method of travel is instant through something like a wormhole. In that case you would only need to know how to find the wormhole or created it if thats what they do.

Pure fantastic conjecture ahead!

Hypothetically they might be able to use them for that instantaneous travel. If they are galatic network nodes, meaning they transmit, store and process gargantuan levels of information, they might transmit objects too.

reply to post by clay2 baraka


Dr. Burnell seemed real bothered by the fact that pulsar had planets. At least three were detected.

She said they had no explanation how the planets would of survived the supernova. A supernova is one of the most destructive forces in the universe and yet those planets somehow escaped being pulverized.

She also mentioned the emissions as well. The planets shouldn't be there considering the emissions from the pulsars are powerful enough to blast away the surfaces of stars. She explained that binary systems with one pulsar would eventually result with the pulsar destroying the other star. Yet here there were three planets orbiting a pulsar.

Your right that about how astonishing it is that a pulsar would have planets. If what you say about pulsars being artificial is true, then it would make sense to have colonies and space stations next to them.

I would love to hear what someone like Tyson or Kaku has to say about this planetary system.

[edit on 1-3-2009 by Enphamus]

reply to post by MikeboydUS


Fantastic thread, Mike.

Loved the idea of the Pulsars acting as network nodes and the idea of using them to essentially teleport towards any node in the network...

From there you could probably use the same tech you would need to develop to hone in on frequencies and travel whereever you like within that "sector", if you will.

FTL... instantaneous.

Now you just gotta figure out how to build a superconductor big enough to fit people inside of.

NASA have been using pulsar navigation for years for space probes. They measure the time difference between when a radio pulse from a pulsar meets a space probe compared to when it meets an Earth station and calculate the distance between said points. Like Rickyrrr mentioned it is time based. They do this with pulsars in a few different directions to plot in three dimensions. It is incredibly accurate. I'm wondering if they want to switch to x-rays because of the ability to penetrate obstructions more effectively.

If you want to experience something really mind blowing check out this link. It is amazing to actually hear how fast a pulsar can be made to spin.

The Sound of Pulsars

That link about the sound of pulsars is really mind boggling, I can't even imagine a star rotating at 1/7 the speed of light. Sounds like the work of a super-intelligence...hmmm

Originally posted by dainoyfb
NASA have been using pulsar navigation for years for space probes. They measure the time difference between when a radio pulse from a pulsar meets a space probe compared to when it meets an Earth station and calculate the distance between said points. Like Rickyrrr mentioned it is time based. They do this with pulsars in a few different directions to plot in three dimensions. It is incredibly accurate. I'm wondering if they want to switch to x-rays because of the ability to penetrate obstructions more effectively.

If you want to experience something really mind blowing check out this link. It is amazing to actually hear how fast a pulsar can be made to spin.

The Sound of Pulsars

Dr. Burnell played a few at the lecture. The sound of some of them almost remind me of morse code or a telegraph. All of them sound very mechanical.

[edit on 2/3/09 by MikeboydUS]

The pulsars on the website go up to 716 revolutions per second but the site hasn't been updated for a while and the last one I heard about being discovered was spinning at about 1200 revolutions per second.

If they are spinning that fast does it mean the whole star itsself is experiencing time dialation? I wonder how that works.

[edit on 2-3-2009 by FortyTwo]

reply to post by FortyTwo


I think that the planets surrounding the pulsars would move in a speed dependant on the pulsars that they surround.

IF the pulsars were spinning rapidly and the planets, for some reason, were able to sustain life, then I would imagine that they WOULD experience dialation in relation to US...

That being said, the inhabitants of those planets would live lives INCREDIBLY longer than we do... Or would that be shorter?

hmmm....

PS - It is a shame this thread hasn't taken off, Mike... It is really some good stuff.


[edit on 2-3-2009 by Jay-in-AR]

[edit on 2-3-2009 by Jay-in-AR]

reply to post by Jay-in-AR


I wish I could remember what Dr. Burnell said about time dilation in regards to these things. I simply can't recall it. I know she did mention that they cause time dilation and they bend light.

One of the wierder things was due to the way they bend light, she said if you could physically stand at one point on the surface you would see all of it, even over the horizon.

reply to post by FortyTwo


It wouldn't really matter would it?

Conditions on the surface of one of those things would be weird enough what with the extreme gravity gradient and all. The tidal forces would be nasty.

reply to post by MikeboydUS


I don't understand that much at all.

I wonder what she means...
Is it that we, being people of slow rotation, would perceive the quickness as stationary and whole?

I don't know. But rest assured, it is a hypothesis we can never test... We couldn't stand there long enough.

This reminds me of a ST voyager episode where there was a planet that experienced 1 year of time for every 10 seconds or so on Voyager. The crew observed the inhabitants grow from a hunter-gatherer society to a space-faring civilization.

If that's what the conditions are like on a planet around a pulsar, then it would make sense that life (if it existed) would quickly evolve to become highly intelligent.

make any sense?

[edit on 3-3-2009 by FortyTwo]

reply to post by FortyTwo

See Dragon's Egg, by Robert Forward (1980).
A life form on the surface of a neutron star. Really cool stuff!

Originally posted by rickyrrr

Originally posted by Phage
What am I missing (in regard to navigation)?

It sounds like using pulsars for triangulation is no different than using stars for the same purpose. Apollo missions took sightings on known stars to determine their position just as mariners have for centuries (albeit more acurrately).

It's a little different in that using stars for navigation is based on judging your position from the angle at which the stars are found, while radio-triangulation does not so much know the angle from which the signal arrives, but instead the timing of signal arrival. Minor detail.

I am not 100% sure but I think that using the sightings of known stars might be somewhat harder to use to locate oneself in an arbitrary point in space (as opposed to a point constrained on a sphere or a path), but signal timing can be used essentially anywhere with little difference in computational effort.

-rrr

i somewhat disagree...due to the signal wave traveling over great distances from the pulsar to your location, the amount of distortion of that wave due to gravitational eddys, dark matter influence, unseen steller bursts varied across the wave spectrum, would cause me to investigate the accuracy out along given points...say 1 light year, then 5 light years etc. because of the vastness of space between galaxies, that type of travel might require more accuracy.