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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

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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?

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[–] Washuchan@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Cosmic background radiation provides a stable frame of reference for setting up a coordinate system. If the explorers have a main HQ base, it can be set as the origin (0,0,0). The location of an object in space can be communicated using a tuple like (10km, 30°, 30°), representing the radius (distance to the object), polar angle (angle between the positive z-axis and the line connecting the origin to the point), and azimuthal angle (angle between the positive x-axis and the line connecting the origin to the point on the xy-plane).

Alternatively, if only a general region is needed, grid coordinates can be used with any useful unit of measurement for the distance between grid lines.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yep. Fun fact, if you used the center of the Earth at Epoch 0, the reference point would shoot out of central Africa a few seconds later in the direction of Ophiuchus.

Source: Napkin math that was surprisingly hard, because of all the moving parts with their own coordinate systems that don't necessarily have nice conversion tables in common use.