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Sailing by Stars and Waves
Muse Science Magazine for Kids
|March 2023
DISCOVERING THE SCIENCE OF POLYNESIAN NAVIGATION

You are sailing in a tiny boat on an endless sea in darkness. Now look up and imagine that every star above you is an island, in the vast ocean of the inky night sky. And that every wave that rocks your boat is telling you how to reach home.
More than a thousand years ago, Polynesian sailors used clues from stars and waves and other natural features to find their way across vast stretches of open sea. They navigated successfully between tiny islands separated by thousands of miles. They did so without compasses or other modern instruments.
Watching the Stars
This story is from the March 2023 edition of Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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