Scientists conducted an experiment to determine the position of the New Horizons spacecraft, located far on the outskirts of the Solar System. It used the stars closest to us for navigation.

New Horizons. Source: www.space.com

Navigation experiment

Scientists working with the New Horizons spacecraft have published an article describing an experiment to determine its position in space, which took place at the end of last year. Thus, scientists have decided to test a concept that has been discussed for a long time — autonomous stellar navigation.

The point is that when spacecraft enter interstellar space, there will be nothing but emptiness around them, so it will be impossible to say exactly how far they have traveled. And Earth will be too far away for them to observe.

But the stars remain. If you know where each celestial body is in the Earth’s sky, you can find them at your location and determine your location based on how their position differs from normal.

New Horizons

New Horizons is perfectly suited for the space navigation experiment. This is the fifth and last robotic vehicle to date that has left the Solar System. There are a lot of instruments on board, including optical and infrared cameras, as well as spectrographs for them.

New Horizons completed its main task — the exploration of Pluto and Charon — long ago. It also completed an additional program, and now it’s being used to study the heliosphere. Therefore, it is already far enough away to be used for testing stellar navigation.

For this purpose, the camera of the spacecraft photographed the position of only two stars in the sky: Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light-years away, and Wolf 359, which is 7.86 light-years away. The closer the stars are to us, the greater their parallax, or displacement in the sky, should be.

The experiment was a success. The spacecraft determined its position with an accuracy of 4.1 million km. This may not seem like a remarkable result, but considering the distance at which it is currently located, it is comparable to determining the distance between New York and Los Angeles with an accuracy of 60 cm.

Scientists are extremely pleased with the results of the experiment. Of course, there is nothing new about this method. But making sure it would work outside the Solar System was really important.

According to phys.org