Asklemmy

43893 readers

822 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

If you were the boss of a group of intergalactic explorers, what would you use as the "North" on the space compasses? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 month ago by CraigOhMyEggo@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

On Earth, the cardinal directions are straightforward. The arrow on a compass points to the nearest magnetic pole. You can then use it to travel anywhere on Earth.

In space, the idea of anything being "central" enough to be used as a "North" (since the universe has no center) or being fixated enough to not somehow pose issues is more convoluted.

If you were a pioneer of space exploration, what would your "North" be?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I’d use Discworld nomenclature:

Hubward
Rimward
Turnwise
Widdershins

[–] yokonzo@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Fun fact, widdershins is a real word, it used to be used for talking about someone walking around a church counter clockwise, which would make it possible for a demon (or fae?) to snatch children up

[–] tacostrange@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

What about catywampus?

[–] MelastSB@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Also up and down, I assume?

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I'd probably just make that height over or under the middle of rotation

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A few problems with this. That requires a world experienced in 2D, with one axis being towards or away from the centre, and the other being clockwise or anticlockwise. Works great when discussing intragalactic travel, but OP specified intergalactic travel. Where there is neither an obvious centre point nor a single plane on which things predominantly occur.

Though fwiw, language very similar to that is legitimately used in some real world languages. Some Malayo-Polynesian languages, such as Manam, talk about direction in terms of seaward, inland, clockwise, and anticlockwise.

[–] bob_lemon@feddit.org 2 points 1 month ago

You can prefix the coordinates with the name of the current nearest star or center of galaxy.

Universal coordinates are fairly useless anyway, given how everything moves around in space.