Scientists test new (and old) navigation systems to end GPS dependence
On a UK military test flight over southern England in May 2024, a team of British and America physicists carried a briefcase-sized object containing one of the strangest substances in the universe: a cloud of atoms cooled so close to absolute zero temperature that they merged into a single quantum state.
Known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, it is a new form of matter first created in a laboratory in1995. The experiment, carried out by BAE Systems, Infleqtion, a Colorado-based tech company,and UK-based defence company QinetiQ, marked the first time such an object is known to havesurvived intact aboard an aircraft in flight. Defence companies such as BAE believe it could helpsolve one of modern warfare’s most pressing problems: how to navigate when GPS disappears.
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