Let the Stars and the Ink Guide You Home [Science Tattoos]

Discover the celestial navigation importance in today's tech-driven world. Learn why old school navigation methods still matter.

Written byCarl Zimmer
| 1 min read
Google NewsGoogle News Preferred Source

Newsletter

Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science news

Sign Up

Marc Morency, Quartermaster 1st class, USN, writes: "While I am by no means a scientist, I have been fortunate enough to be paid by the government to get ships from pt. A to pt. B serving in the US Navy as a Quartermaster. I was drawn to the navigation when I joined. In my opinion, it is the only job in the military that is both a science and an art Celestial navigation has been something I have become profoundly interested in since I joined ten years ago. In this age of GPS, it is, in my opinion more important now than ever for Navigators to remain proficient in the old ways to fix a ship's position using a sextant and trigonometry. My tattoo is the visual depiction of how to plot a line of position from a celestial body using the altitude intercept method, a method which has been time tested for more than a century. For me it serves as a reminder that while technology improves, the sea remains an unpredictable place and it is up to the older generation to teach the younger the old school ways of doing business."

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Meet the Author

Stay Curious

JoinOur List

Sign up for our weekly science updates

View our Privacy Policy

SubscribeTo The Magazine

Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine.

Subscribe