How to Use celestial navigation in a Sentence

celestial navigation

noun
  • There are even birds and seals that use celestial navigation, but in the insect world, this finding is a first.
    — Breanna Draxler, Discover Magazine, 25 Jan. 2013
  • But who would’ve thought the humble dung beetle had celestial navigation figured out?
    — Meredith Carpenter, Discover Magazine, 31 Jan. 2014
  • Many mariners noted that paper charts are not available onboard, and celestial navigation is rarely practiced.
    — Anna Raymaker, The Conversation, 12 Mar. 2026
  • Kamai trains in celestial navigation, using the stars, winds and waves to traverse the ocean without modern instruments.
    — ABC News, 29 Mar. 2026
  • Kamai trains in celestial navigation, using the stars, winds and waves to traverse the ocean without modern instruments.
    — Deepa Bharath, Los Angeles Times, 30 Mar. 2026
  • For thousands of years, celestial navigation was only practiced by men in Polynesia.
    — Dobrina Zhekova, Travel + Leisure, 16 July 2023
  • These changes must be taken into account for successful celestial navigation.
    — Kim Breen, USA TODAY, 2 Apr. 2024
  • Your new telescope won’t magically download celestial navigation in your head.
    — Mike Lynch, Twin Cities, 21 Jan. 2024
  • Traditional celestial navigation requires measuring the angle of a star or planet in the sky.
    — David Hambling, Popular Mechanics, 25 Apr. 2021
  • For centuries, mariners relied on paper charts and celestial navigation to determine their position.
    — Anna Raymaker, The Conversation, 12 Mar. 2026
  • This feat of celestial navigation could be one more step toward Carl Sagan’s dream of journeying across the cosmos on reflective sails propelled by beams of light.
    — Amy Thompson, Smithsonian, 25 June 2019
  • The yachters race for 645 miles, using celestial navigation only (in other words, the stars instead of a traditional map).
    — Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 31 May 2019
  • This kind of celestial navigation would have made Nabta Playa's stone circle a powerful symbol to the ancient nomadic people.
    — Eric Betz, Discover Magazine, 20 June 2020
  • The item in question was a 1,000-year-old astrolabe, a tool designed by the ancients for celestial navigation, telling time and reading horoscopes.
    — Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Mar. 2024
  • Looking to the stars Most Pacific voyagers rely on celestial navigation.
    — The Conversation, 14 May 2025
  • Earhart had never bothered to master Morse code, and Noonan relied heavily on celestial navigation.
    — Laurie Gwen Shapiro, New Yorker, 2 June 2025
  • To learn more about the night sky, book a stargazing session with Vavau where guests take a sunset cruise to a motu (island) and learn about how ancient Polynesians used celestial navigation.
    — Sarah Sekula, USA TODAY, 25 Mar. 2021
  • Therefore, celestial navigation requires knowledge of the currents’ presence, speed, strength and direction, as well as being able to judge winds’ strength, direction and effect on the canoe.
    — The Conversation, 14 May 2025
  • The post represents the Māori’s connection to Antarctica, the use of celestial navigation and the spirit of exploration.
    — Livia Gershon, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 June 2021
  • Urania Urania is the Muse of astronomy and celestial navigation.
    — Ryan Brennan, Kansas City Star, 20 Jan. 2025
  • On the ground, the military is starting to retrain pilots, ship captains, and ground troops in fail-safe forms of navigation that don’t rely on GPS—like celestial navigation.
    — Garrett M. Graff, WIRED, 26 June 2018
  • Since antiquity navigators had been able to find their latitude fairly easily using celestial navigation.
    — Meg Neal, Popular Mechanics, 6 Aug. 2020
  • As Polynesia was colonized and modernized, the secrets of celestial navigation were nearly forgotten.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 15 May 2021
  • At sea, celestial navigation, which came into its own in the late 1700s, requires algorithms to crunch the inputs from a sextant that allows mariners to determine their position on the surface of a sphere.
    — Scott Neuman, NPR, 11 June 2026
  • Some believe the double movements serve to display dual time zones; others argue the second movement was purposefully engineered to track sidereal time (a timekeeping system used in celestial navigation).
    — Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Future ballistic missiles will also include advanced celestial navigation.
    — David Hambling, Popular Mechanics, 25 Apr. 2021
  • Topics range from mastering celestial navigation to improvising fishing line from thread to getting water from a barrel cactus (only for emergencies, since cactus water can induce diarrhea).
    — Bill Heavey, WSJ, 23 May 2018
  • Today, French Polynesia is seeing a resurgence of interest in celestial navigation, sparked by the relaunch of races like the solo-sailing Golden Globe.
    — Pam Leblanc, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 May 2022
  • The sextant sailors used in the 18th century for celestial navigation had a telescopic attachment (which gave Popeye the Sailor his characteristic squint).
    — Austin Grossman, The Atlantic, 13 Oct. 2019
  • This halau, built through a joint effort between community activists, the county, and the club, is a space where the two men and other community members hold classes for local kids on crafting, oral history, celestial navigation, and ecology.
    — Soleil Ho, GQ, 20 Apr. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'celestial navigation.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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