How long would it take to reach the recently discovered "Super Earth"?

Question

Given current space based propulsion technologies how long would it take to travel 20.5 light years, the distance to this recently discovered planet?

Further, using a planetary object, Jupiter, Saturn or something else suitable is it possible to harness gravity to drastically increase the speed of say a satellite? If a satellite was sent hurtling towards this planet what is the soonest it could arrive? Are satellites capable of surviving such long journeys, power levels, ability to avoid collisions with objects etc…

If anyone has maths to back up what they say that would be great.

Answer 1

speed of light 300,000,000 metres per second
31,557,600 seconds per year
S.O.L 9,467,280,000,000,000 metres per year.
20.5 x S.O.L = 194,079,240,000,000,000 metres
which is 194,079,240,000,000 kilometres
0.621 miles per kilometer
so 120,523,208,040,000 miles to "super" earth

Fastest spacecraft - Helios 2 reached ~157,113 mph(253,000km/h)

so would take 767,111,620 hours
which is 31,962,984 days
which is 87,509 years

assuming it maintains a constant speed of ~157,110mph, that the planet is exactly 20.5 light years away, and that a year is 365.25 days (and there are exactly 24 hours per day)

None of these, are in fact 100% true, so would have to say the time taken ranges from 85,000 to 90,000 years.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

If you consider that 100 years ago the maximum speed that humans were experiencing was around 30km/h and now we can send space probes/ships which travel at 30000km/h, I can easily assume that current technology will evolve further in the next 100 years to possibly allow us to go as fast as 30000000km/h which is still 3% of light speed. And it's trivial that even at light speed it would take 20 years...
So unless "they" come here and pick us up for a ride using their amazingly advanced technology, I don't see any reasonable way of getting there ourselves...
Apparently there are fictional methods for travelling at Warp Speed which would make the trip a thousand times shorter (if not more, google for "Warp Speed Defined") and in this case we could be there in just a week. Now you're talking!

Answer 3

If we could find a propulsion system to constantly accelerate at one gravity interstellar travel becomes plausible - no Star Trek needed. After about a year the relative speed approaches that of light - so time dilation becomes significant - so travel to the nearer stars (for the astronaut) will only take a few years.

Start experimenting!

Answer 4

The figure of 5 billion years is way, way off. I can't believe The Times printed a story with that figure, I think they must have made it up because they couldn't be bothered to work it out.

That's not to say it wouldn't take an inordinate amount of time. The fastest spacecraft ever created by man travelled at 241,000 kph. At this speed, it would take 19000 years to reach our nearest stellar neighbour, Proxima Centauri. To get to Gliese 581 it would take something like 96,000 years according to my admittedly crude calculations.


I'm certain that, if we sent a probe today, humanity would have figured out a way of travelling there much quicker before the probe completed its journey.

Answer 5

the irony is that it say for argument sake it only takes a month to get there, due to the speed of light the planet could have blown up 20 years ago and we wouldnt know about it. It may not even exist anymore

Answer 6

I am sorry but I think that super earth is 9000 light-years away

and anyway there were two probes called voyager 1 and voyager 2 the farthest anything manmade has reached(except radio wave)

voyager 2 recieved gravity assists from marks, jupiter, saturn and titan(saturns moon) but its only still around 12 AU away from earth (1AU = distance between sun and earth = 8 light minutes)

and it was launched in 1977 i think not very sure long time back though

even with gravity assist and stuff we cant even reach 1% of speed of light till date

Answer 7

for traveling even to the near planet like mars and Jupiter we need new technology of spaceships we can newer reach to the speed of lite for traveling as Enistine said so we need to use some other hypothesis like worm holes we should stay and work for this theory maybe this was our just way to travel in distance travels

Answer 8

need = invention
with convectional drives it takes ridiculous amounts of time but if we discover that the planet is indeed worth visiting then Iam sure we will come up with a way to travel through space, just wait and see it will be awesome
engaging warp driver *engines tuning* woooooooooooooooooooooo..... pishoooooo
:D planet "C" here we come

Answer 9

Look at queations from last night. The math is there and it turned out to be a little over 800,000 years and you don't know what you get when you arrive. The red giant star could be extinguished and the planet could be full of sulphuric acid.

Answer 10

Not got the maths but sky news said it would take something like 5 billion years at todays technology.

They should get started now then.