NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Mars Tables
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2008 May 28, 10:43 -0400
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2008 May 28, 10:43 -0400
Bruce Hamilton, you wrote: "This is the one place in the world I can ask this question and not get laughed at, and probably get an answer." LOL. I'm definitely laughing, but laughing with you! You asked: "Has any one worked out tables for celestial navigation on Mars?" Well, let's see... The stars are in the same positions, so no problem there. You would have to adjust the annual precession for "Martian" values, and there is essentially no nutation. The annual aberration would be nearly the same, though smaller in magnitude (about 16 arcseconds instead of 20, and somewhat variable) The standard, widely available JPL ephemeride solutions are accurate enough in 3d space that we could easily compute the SHA and Dec of the Sun and the navigational planets (Venus, EARTH, Jupiter, and Saturn). The variability in delta-T that we have on Earth would be much smaller on Mars. Of course, the spherical triangle math doesn't change, so you could use HO 229, if you want. One small thing to keep in mind: in terms of linear distances, celestial navigation is twice as accurate on Mars because one minute of arc difference in a star's altitude corresponds to about 3000 feet on Mars instead of one nautical mile as on Earth (if you want, you could define a "Martian nautical mile" with that shorter length). This is a specific case of the general principle that the accuracy of celestial navigation (by altitudes from the horizon, or equivalently zenith distances from the vertical) decreases as the radius of curvature of the surface increases. So it's less accurate on Earth, more accurate on Mars, and really accurate (in terms of distance on the ground per minute of arc change in altitude) on a small spherical asteroid. Similarly, on one planet, if the local radius of curvature is greater, which implies a flatter portion of the planet, then the accuracy of celestial goes down. Note that the "surface" whose curvature is being measured is really the surface of the geoid. If you have an asteroid shaped something like a diverging lense, concave on both sides, the geoid would be flat on both sides, and then celestial observations could not distinguish positions at all (except by small changes in parallax of objects which are nearby). The density of the Martian air is less than 1% of that on the Earth, so above about ten degrees altitude you could ignore refraction for standard sextant observations (I say "about" because of the difference in atmospheric composition). Finally, we get to Phobos and Deimos. Lunar distance observations would give quite accurate time on Mars, though in some latitudes the moons are always below the horizon. The positions of the Martian moons are known to high accuracy, but this is a case where ultra-high accuracy would pay back great benefits. The moons potentially offer the easiest and most accurate method of finding one's position on Mars. Since many bright stars can be seen in daylight, this could be done without a sextant. You would photograph Phobos or Deimos among the background stars, measure its RA and Dec and then from its known 3d position in space (assuming the Universal Time is already known), you would draw a ray which would intersect the surface of Mars at your location. That would give you a very accurate latitude and longitude on Mars. So we would essentially be using lunar distances to get a position fix without any need to determine a local vertical... where have I heard that before??? For the foreseeable future, on Mars, it seems to me that "air traffic control" is probably a better approach to position-finding. In other words, you emit a signal trackable from orbit, and "they" keep track of your position and beam it back to you. We've seen some nice examples of this in the past few days as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has photographed the Phoenix lander descending under its parachute (SPECTACULAR! Coolest thing I've seen in months!) and then its landing site complete with ancillary components. And from that we know the exact position of Phoenix on Mars. -FER --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc To post, email NavList@fer3.com To , email NavList-@fer3.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---