WASHINGTON (7News) — In today’s world, there are so many things we take for granted. For example, we simply trust that the time on our phones is accurate. A DMV military installation makes all that magic happen.
On a hill in Northwest D.C., overlooking the nation’s capital, astronomers gather at the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) to look to the stars.
“A lot of our navigation tends to be GPS and things like that, but celestial navigation is still used and practiced,” said USNO Astronomer Dr. Rachel Matson.
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One of the telescopes at the U.S. Naval Observatory has been in continuous use since 1873. Astronomers continuously track the motions of some of the brightest stars in the sky. The information is used for military ships and published in scientific literature for anyone who may need it.
“If you’re trying to navigate, especially out at sea, you don’t have a lot of landmarks to look at and things like that and the stars are the common landmark that you can use to navigate, find where you are,” said Dr. Matson.
The U.S. Naval Observatory is the military’s authoritative source for positioning, navigation, and time.
“It is the foundational work that we take for granted everyday- in terms of knowing where we are and when we are,” said USNO Public Affairs Officer Kimberly Rupley.
USNO has maintained a time service department since 1880. The Master Clock is comprised of over 100 atomic clocks. They basically keep near-perfect time by using the vibrations of atoms as a pendulum. The USNO Master Clock works in tandem with other time services around the world. It’s an effort to make sure everyone on earth knows exactly what time it is.
“Even think of things like the stock market, in terms of who bought the stock first, was it this person or this person? And those smaller and smaller intervals make all the difference, especially now in modern day, where they’re happening at a click of a button,” said Rupley.
Without the work done here at the USNO, technologies like GPS would not be possible.
“You can’t get to those products unless you actually have that authoritative source of data of where its coming from and that comes from celestial objects and things in the night sky and having those reference frames the U.S. Naval Observatory produces,” said Rupley.
Something as simple as knowing the time takes a herculean effort.
Of course, the USNO is well known as the home to the vice president.
That’s only a recent designation.
An 1893 house on the property served as the home to the USNO superintendent and later the Chief of Naval Operations. But then, in 1974 congress decided to refurbish it to become the home of the VP.