Time and Navigation exhibit explains how clocks aid travel
Smithsonian experts discuss how precise timekeeping underpins modern navigation from sea to space. The new Time and Navigation exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum opened April 12, highlighting latitude longitude and longitude lines and the shift from celestial to precise chronometers in the 1700s to improve ship routes and port arrivals.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
National Air and Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D.C
The
Air and Space Museum
National Museum of American History
Cariba Heine Shines as Mermaid in Just Add Water DVD
Cariba Heine plays mermaid Rikki in the Teen Nick series Just Add Water and the past episodes are now on DVD. Born Caribe in South Africa and raised in Australia, she began dance young and trained in tap ballet acrobatics and gymnastics. Her family are dancers and her mother owns a studio. She acted in Australian shows like Dance Academy and overcame a swimming test to portray a tailing mermaid. She enjoys cooking and speaks fluent French.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Cariba Heine
Rikki
Caribe
South Africa
Australia
Cariba
Navigation by time and the invention of marine chronometers
Sailors in the northern hemisphere faced a longitude problem as the moon and stars could guide latitude but no fixed east west reference existed. To solve this they needed two accurate clocks a home port clock and a local sea clock. Early 1700s seas proved pendulum clocks failed due to waves and spring mechanisms were affected by temperature and metal expansion. In the mid 1700s inventors created accurate marine chronometers to tell time at sea and enable precise longitude calculations.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Northern Hemisphere
Time in the Sky and the GPS system's time links
The text explains how early aviators used clocks and sextants to determine position, and how modern spaceflight requires atomic clocks. It notes that GPS relies on 31 satellites, with 24 needed, and uses radio signals and synchronized atomic clocks aboard satellites to calculate a location on Earth.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Earth
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