[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

[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.

[anonymous]

My gut imstinct is that pulsars would be the obvious landmarks to use. But I'll admit this is not really my field of expertise. I 'think' they have pretty distinctive signatures. Will try to do a bit of digging later when I'm at my computer as just on kindle right now and about to go to sleep.

Its a really good question

[ffutures]

Pulsars are probably only useful for huge distances, hundreds or thousands of light years. They're too far away to be much use for more local navigation.

[junkerin]

It depends is the scientist still in our milkyway? If yes than he propbaly could especially when he is in the same arm (as our solar system) or close to it.

If the scientist is on the opposit side or in a nother galaxy than probaly not.

[chesneycat]

This

[enleve]

If you use simulation software such as Starry Night or Celestia you can see what the sky would look like from other stars or from different times in the past and future. Stars move, so the constellations gradually change over time, even if you stay on Earth.

If the people on the other planet have similar software, then they could figure out what the sky would look like from earth's sun, and show your character familiar constellations (though they wouldn't group the stars into constellations from our culture unless the character told them how to do so.)

Celestia is open source free software. If you download it, and turn on the view that shows the constellations and constellation boundaries, then select another star for your viewpoint, you can see how they would change.
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

[ffutures]

For short distances - a few tens of light years - this would be possible. Someone trained in astronomy and using just classical techniques (e.g. looking at the constellations with a telescope and sextant, and not much else) would probably be possible to pin down their approximate position by noting which constellations are still more or less unchanged, which are completely different. It would help immensely to have star maps and reference tables, of course.

This assumes that the atmosphere of the planet they're on has about the same clarity as our own, so that stars will have roughly the same brightness. Relatively minor changes might reduce or increase the number of visible stars, which would make sorting it out much harder.