will astronouts ever go to another galaxy?

Question

will an astrounout ever go to a galaxy and even if they do then it what year? also how long would it take them?

whoever gives me the best answer will get 5 stars.

Answer 1

Our astronauts will never go to another galaxy.

There are only two remote possibilities that make it at all possible to say that "an astronaut will go to another galaxy." I will state the first sentence as fact for each possibility.

1) Our descendants will one day travel to remote regions. Because it would take millions and millions of years, anything like this would most likely be a colonization effort, rather than the work of what we think of as astronauts.

The term astronaut basically means "star sailor", so if a colonization effort were ever to bring a ship to another galaxy, then technically this would be true. However, the beings who arrived in that galaxy would have been born on the way, as would generations of their ancestors. In fact, more generations than there have been humans to date. By a lot. Some religious people say we have only had 7000 years of generations. Scientific people only estimate that we have had about 200,000 years of generations of homo sapien. So, even if a colonizing effort did reach another galaxy after millions of years of evolution about ship, I don't think it would be accurate to say that astronauts "visited another galaxy".

2) Our science will one day develop to the point that we are able to encode our very beings (the essence that we are, including our intelligence and self awareness) into energy so that we can travel as energy. But, if this alone were to occur, it would still take millions of years to get to another galaxy. So, in addition to that, we would also need to make such advances in science that we would be able to travel faster than the speed of light. Our existing scientific understanding of the Universe tells us that this is impossible. So a paradigm shift would have to occur if we are to ever travel faster than the speed of light (even in the form of energy, or anything else).

There is something in quantum mechanics that could theoretically allow us "travel" to another galaxy. (Not us, actually. But only if we're very imaginative, only if we consider the possibility of somehow encoding our beings as energy at a quantum level, and only if we accept things that currently seem impossible.

QUOTE from Double-slit Experiment link below:
Under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, an individual photon is seen as passing through both slits at once, and interfering with itself, producing the interference pattern.

QUOTE from Quantum theory is bizaare link below:
It is possible, and has been carried out in laboratory tests over a short distance, to split the particles apart and send them in opposite directions and then measure one of them for spin. The instant it is measured, and the spin determined, the other particle adopts the opposite spin. The time interval is zero, the event takes place instantaneously, even though the particles are separated, and theoretically would still do so even if they were separated by a distance measured in light years. This is what upset Einstein, the implication that particles could communicate at faster than light speed, as it is impossible for this to happen according to Einstein's theory of relativity.

QUOTE 2 from same source:
It may be the case that we are completely missing some fundamental property of particles, a property that as yet remains undetected by our equipment and experiments. There may be things going on that we are completely unaware of.


Perhaps info can travel faster than the speed of light, or a photon can somehow exist in two places at once or maybe there is simply a level of scientific understanding so far beyond our grasp at this time in history that we can't even begin to understand it. Whatever the reason, it is a fact that experimentation shows something very strange happening that we just don't get. A photon can be in two places at once, apparently; two photons can communicate with each other (spin example in 2nd linked article) instantaneously--without any time passing.

Maybe that aspect of reality will some day develop into something that will allow us to visit another galaxy.

At this point in history, though, that possibility best falls into the category of science fiction that is inspired by science fact.

Only the future will tell.

Answer 2

It all comes down to, will we ever figure out a way to go faster than light or not?

If you think we will, the next question is, how long will it take to do that? Add a few decades to your best guess, and there's your answer. Note that the best science out there still has no proof that anything ever CAN go faster than light, let alone a clue as to how it might be done.

You'll see talk of wormholes here...bear in mind that wormholes are just an idea, not even theory right now. If they can be made to exist, some physicists think they will be more useful for time travel than for traveling faster than light. And the only clue anyone has about making a wormhole has instructions that usually start with, "First, take a black hole..."

Now, if you don't think we'll ever travel faster than light, it takes 2.5 million years to get to the next galaxy, traveling at light speed. So, even if someone could travel at a very high fraction of the speed of light (about 12,000 times faster than the fastest space probe we've ever made so far), figure that they might arrive 2.6 million years from now.

Answer 3

I would think, that with 400 billion suns in *this* galaxy, that we would have enough exploring to do just here. The nearest galaxy similar to our own is 2.3 million light years away - a hefty jaunt when you consider the effort it takes just to get to the moon (and we haven't even tried to get a man on Mars yet, just 20 light *minutes* away...)
If we can figure out a way to get from one star to the next in a not-to-long a time, it may be that we will desire to venture beyond the MilkyWay; but honestly, I can't see this happening for a very, very long time - and Man probably won't look like Man by the time it happens.

Answer 4

I do not think so, because the distances are much too great. Even going to the nearest star would take long enough. No matter can travel at the velocity of light, so it is only in fantasy that spaceships travel at light speed or over it. At Earth's escape velocity, a ship would take 106,448 years to reach Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to us, plus 106,448 more years to return. Other stars would take much longer to reach, let alone another galaxy. That is out of the question entirely.

Answer 5

I cannot imagine that happening. We can barely send people to the Moon and robots to Pluto (one is on the way to Pluto now but it will take many years to get there). The nearest other star is hundreds of thousands of times farther away that Pluto, and the nearest galaxy hundreds of thousands of times farther away than the nearest star. Even the fictional star ship Enterprise never went to another galaxy. Even in the Star Wars movies they never go to another galaxy. That is so far away even our imagination cannot go it seems. As for physically really traveling there, I say it will never happen, or if it does it would have to be in some unimaginable distant future thousands or millions of years from now.

Answer 6

It will be centuries before we can go to another star system,
Another galaxy, probably never. The nearest spiral galaxy Andromeda is 2.5 million light-years away, so if we could travel at light speed it would take 2.5 million years to get there.

Answer 7

Today's technology will not allow us to get to another solar system in Man's life time. When we can create a ship that can travel at twice the light speed in mear hours this will not happen. Maybe in the next 500 years it will happen, but not in this life time

Answer 8

Probably eventually. It would require dramatic advances in technology, something capable of traveling at or near light speed, or possibly bending 3-space to make the distance shorter. Even at light speed travel, other galaxies are very far away, and because of special relativity, no one on Earth would be alive to see the progress of the astronauts (they'd all be dead from the passage of time).

Answer 9

I don't think so. I mean, it will take light years to get there. Unless we can create a technology that will enable us to travel close to light speed, it will take a very long time...

P.S. wormhole may be a possibility.

Answer 10

ummm.. 2 months?? dosen't it take years to get to like pluto already? a galaxy would probably take a 100 years on a space craft, considering that we didn't have any problems during that time and that the atronats lived. imagine the ride back. we would probably have to wait a few centuries before space craft become fast enough.