How do direction work in space because north,east,west and south are bonded to earth? How does a spacecraft guide itself in the unending space?

Question

How do direction work in space because north,east,west and south are bonded to earth? How does a spacecraft guide itself in the unending space?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Hi y’all,

This topic is very complex and certainly need simplifying. That is the goal of the sub. Something that confuses some is that the target audience is ‘lay-person’ and not a literal five-year-old. ^(shout-out to r/ELIactually5, which gets no love)

So as mods we have a really interesting problem. What do lay people understand? What words are known to the average joe on the street. ^(As reddit mods we are, of course, of the upper reaches of the intelligence spectrum)[.](https://youtu.be/wyyr3L3rFvA?t=10)

So we have to assume that x-thousand upvotes (and only a few reports) means it was digestible to most.

Feel free to use the reports or comment in the sub in my footer if you want to discuss the rules. I’ll even link it here in the sticky.

[Here’s a link to the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules), which have recently been rewritten to be more informative/clear.

—

As always, I am not the final authority on any of this. If you want my mod-action reviewed you can [send a modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive). If you want to have a meta-conversation about the rules of the sub you can make a post in r/ideasforeli5 which is our home for that.

—

If you want **even more words** look at the reply below. ^(users love more words, always)