Ever wondered how your smartphone can pin down your exact location, anywhere on the planet? You can thank the Global Positioning System (GPS) for that. Now, I know that sounds all fancy and complicated, but think of it as a big game of cosmic tag that your phone is always playing with satellites in space.
Back in the early 70s, the US Department of Defense began launching a bunch of satellites into orbit that eventually became the GPS system we rely on today. When it’s fully operational, the system has at least 24 active satellites circling the earth. It’s these guys that your phone is constantly communicating with.
Now, these satellites are kind of like a bunch of cosmic clocks. They’re all fitted out with incredibly precise atomic clocks that send signals back to earth with their precise time and location. When your phone gets these time stamps, it does a bit of math - or triangulation - comparing the time it received these signals from at least four different satellites. This lets it calculate how far it is from each of them, and voila - your phone knows where you are.
It’s pretty crazy when you stop to think about what’s going on behind the scenes. Every time you open up a map, your phone is talking to satellites in space. The timing has to be so precise. If the time’s off by even a nanosecond, it could mean your location is off by miles.
