[ANON POST] Where In The Universe Am I?

[orange_fell]

If a modern-day scientist were to be transported to a planet orbiting a distant star, would they be able to tell where in the universe they are by observing the skies? What I mean is, could they pinpoint their location to a certain star system if they had access to the same tech and info as on Earth. The assumption being that it's a star system

Comments

[framlingem]

By same tech and info, can you be more specific? Orbiting telescopes and observatories with accompanying computers and software?

Theoretically it is possible, since stars have specific chromatic signatures, and if you find three known stars you can then calculate your position relative to Earth by figuring out where you are in relation to those stars; you'd need enough time to measure distances using parallax, too. There's also the problem that the chromatography uses the light from the star, which travels at light speed (obviously) and the data is going to be years younger or older depending on how much the distance changes, and that would screw up the results since the data being input would be different. (Newer light = more time for fusion = heavier elements = different readings of star's composition = different signature). Your scientist could in theory compensate for this, I imagine, but it'd be a lot of trial and error since the change will not be consistent.

This is assuming the stars are in the Milky Way. Even better if they're in the Local Cluster. If the star system's in a different galaxy, your scientist is not going to be able to figure this out. They'd need to be pretty close by.

[kehlen]

This was a good question, and a good answer, and also something SciFi books usually gloss over: just HOW do you navigate those remote,well, not waters, but spaces.

Thank you both.

[framlingem]

:) It's a fun question. And it occurs to me that if you can measure distance using parallax, you can probably make some adjustments in the software that searches your on-hand chromatography database.