Progress in developing x-ray pulsar-based navigation (XNAV)
In early 2018, NASA announced that it had demonstrated a new type of celestial navigation for the first time. Called XNAV, for x-ray pulsar-based navigation, it relies on beams of radiation from pulsars—the cinders of exploded, massive stars. As pulsars rapidly rotate, they cast energy beams through space like frenetic lighthouses. Those beams sweep past Earth, creating a steady pulse rate. The timing of these pulses can be used just like signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, which pinpoint the moment-to-moment positions of cars and planes. XNAV could let probes know their whereabouts and thus navigate in deep space, where signals from the Earth-based GPS system grow weak. See also: Celestial navigation; Giant star; Global Positioning System (GPS); Navigation; Pulsar; Stellar evolution; X-ray astronomy; X-rays
