Millisecond pulsars emit extremely regular timing signals; comparing arrival-time offsets from several known pulsars (like GPS, but galactic) lets a ship triangulate its 3D position — the XNAV concept.
σ_pos ∝ σ_timing / sqrt(N_beacons)
θ_aberration ≈ arcsin(v/c) / (1 - (v/c)cosθ)
- Velocity (fraction of c) — the ship's speed; besides growing relativistic aberration (stars visibly bunch toward the direction of travel), it also complicates Doppler-corrected timing.
- Beacons used — how many rotating pulsar markers the nav computer triangulates against; more beacons averages down timing noise.
- Sensor noise — scales the timing jitter on each beacon fix, directly setting the position-uncertainty stat.
The rotating markers are stylised pulsar beacons; the position-uncertainty stat shrinks as sqrt(N) with more beacons and grows with sensor noise, while the aberration readout tracks how much faster-than-a-crawl travel visibly warps the apparent star field.