In line with the 2009 Earth Day celebration, NASA led an online poll asking people’s opinion as to what they consider as NASA’s greatest achievement over the last 50 years. The voting was open for one week. The GPS garnered the highest number of votes at 3,280 votes against the 2,408 votes earned by the second-placer: the system for diagnosing the reduction of the ozone layer.
GPS allows a device to accurately locate a point anywhere in the world. Other benefits include tracking the movement of tectonic faults, measuring sea level rise, and making air travel safer.
According to the U.S. space agency, the GPS may appear to be simple but it actually holds massive scientific knowledge about the movement and the changes in the earth. “The precise navigation with the GPS satellites would be impossible without an ultra precise knowledge of the earth’s rotation,” says NASA. The GPS, too, has become so popular and quite ubiquitous that it can be managed, handled, or operated from a car or a mobile phone.
The third place with 2,313 votes went to the advances made in weather forecasting. With information from satellites, it is now possible to anticipate the weather in a certain place by determining the current weather of its neighboring areas. Satellites and sensors can also now predict storms a week in advance.
Via NASA
