Does light always travel at the same speed in space away from our atmosphere?

Answer 1

yes it travels the same

Answer 2

Atmosphere doesn't change the 'speed' of light any more than vacuum does. The 'speed of light' is a 'constant' ... according to some, if we could travel 'close to' the speed of light, our 'aging' would slow down, so that 'thousands of years' would pass in 'real time' but we would still be 'young' when we got to the 'other side of our galaxy.' No one really 'knows' what would happen, though, since NOTHING can come anywhere NEAR the speed of light thus far.

Answer 3

Light in a vacuum travels at a constant speed, approximately 186,000 miles per second. However, because its speed is constant, whether you're moving toward a light beam or away from a light beam, light will change the flow of time as it would appear to a stationary reference frame compared to how it would appear to a moving reference frame.

Answer 4

If you are referring to light transmitted from earth by artificial means or reflected, yes it does. 186000miles per second.
There is a theory that if we look into space and find light that is bouncing off another source and that source is smooth enough like a mirror then we could look back in time! The light reflecting off the earth would travel threw space for many light years, bounce back at us and if we could intercept that echo with a powerful enough telescope we could see what went on decades and even centuries ago.
If sounds pretty wild but it is theoretically possible!
Pretty cool stuff!

Answer 5

The speed of light is always constant. It may seem slower because of all the particles in the air and the (very~tiny) amount of time it may take for absorption and release through some objects or reflection, but the speed of light itself is the same. Being any faster is impossible, and if it were any slower, the energy would dissipate.

Answer 6

This has what to do with computers?

The only time the speed of light is constant is in a vacuum - space.

Answer 7

I think the it's believed to, but I personally think it changes. If light can propel a solar sail through space, then it emits some form of force. If it can emit force, it has to absorb it too. Therefore, it meets resistance. If it can meet resistance, then it changes speed. It may be so small, it can't really be calculated, but it has to change.
I hope it makes sense how I said that.

Answer 8

Actually, light travels marginally faster outside the atmosphere than in it.
Wiki 'refraction"

Answer 9

The speed of light in a vacuum is a constant; this is taken as a standard and is even used to determine the length of a meter.

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_Lighthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_Light
"In metric units, c is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (1,079,252,848.8 km/h).[2] The fundamental SI unit of length, the metre, has been defined since October 21, 1983, as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second; any increase in the precision of the measurement of the speed of light would refine the definition of the metre, but not alter the numerical value of c. The approximate value of 3×108 m/s is commonly used in rough estimates. In imperial units, the speed of light is 983, 571, 056 feet per second, which is about 186,282.397 miles per second, or roughly one foot per nanosecond.

The speed of light when it passes through a transparent or translucent material medium, like glass or air, is slower than its speed in a vacuum. The ratio of c to the observed phase velocity is called the refractive index of the medium. General relativity explains how a gravitational potential can affect the apparent speed of distant light in a vacuum, but locally light in a vacuum always passes an observer at a rate of c."

1.) The speed of light drops inside the atmosphere and water.
2.) A beam of light can be bent by gravity, because it is conducted by a photon a subatomic particle that has a positive mass and therefore it can be affected by gravity. This effect; called gravitational lensing, is important in astronomy.
3.) Since light is a stream of photons and photons have mass, if you hit a huge solar mirror then you will get a tiny bit of push. If you include all the radiation in the solar wind then the amount of propulsion increases, but out beyond Jupiter the sun is too small to provide much propulsion energy. The idea of a solar sail uses a very large, very thin Mylar (very light weight) mirror, to provide propulsion. Unlike a rocket it will only give a feet feet/hour acceleration, but if you do that over millions of miles then that acceleration will add up to a very large velocity. If you shoot that ship with a large solar powered, space based laser then you will get more of a push and a more efficient space craft. The idea sounds weird and stupid, but the ion drive uses the same idea. It provides a little push over a very long distance and it has turned the New Horizons Spacecraft into the fastest moving man made object, breaking the record of the voyager spacecraft.
4.) The “time travel” theory of light observed by astronomers is that when we are observing a far off galaxy the distance is so far that when the light first started the dinosaurs were still roaming the earth. Alpha Centaura is about 4 light years away; which means that a spotlight or radio signal (both are photons in action) would take 4 years to reach that star. The Andromeda Galaxy is over 300 light year away, and it is the nearest galaxy. Space is huge. Imagine you are an ant in a skyscraper and you start to get the idea of how far away Alpha Centaura is. Actually, you would have to be more the size of a microbe to get the scale right.
5.) The earth is 93 million miles away from the sun. It takes a beam of light almost 8 minutes to reach us from the sun. Space is huge, vast, immense, bigger than you can possibly imagine.
6.) Einstein proved that the speed of light is a maximum. His famous formula E=mc^2 (E=m X c squared) means that if anything tries to exceed the speed of light then it will be converted into energy in a huge explosion. The amount of energy created is the speed of light X the speed of light (again) X the mass of the object. We have found this to be true in exploding nuclear bombs. So you cannot go faster than light and remain matter.
7.) Star Trek and other science fiction shows have methods to “cheat” Einstein. For example the Enterprise of Star Trek travels close to light speed inside of a warped bubble of space time that travels faster than the speed of light. The ship itself doesn’t go faster than the speed of light, it is carried along by the warped bubble of space time.
8.) Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity states that as you approach the speed of light your own frame of reference changes with respect to an independent observer. To you everything seems fine, but to the independent observer your mass increases, your length in the direction of travel shrinks and time slows down. If you were able to reach the speed of light then your mass would be infinite (heavier than the entire universe), your length would be squashed to almost nothing and time would almost stop. This has been proven with air planes and the space shuttle through using atomic clocks.

The famous twin paradox involves this theory. If you sent one member of a pair of twins to Alpha Centaura on a space ship traveling near the speed of light then his round trip time would be almost 8 years. The twin who stayed home would have aged more than the simple 8 years, much more. His twin brother would come back to find him and old man. This is purely because of the time distortion due to traveling so fast. We experience it every day, but the distortion of traveling 60 mph is too minor for us to notice. If one pair of twins was a race car driver and his other stayed at home a lot. Then by the end of the racer’s career the two twins would be a few microseconds different in ages.

You have been given some bogus information. Yes looking into a mirror is time travel in a sense. Even if it is only a foot away then the image you see is a few fractions of a second prior to how you currently look. The light coming from the sun came here 8 minutes ago. So yes you experience time travel distortion on a daily, second by second basis. But, we are evolved to understand the world this way so sit doesn’t matter too much. We wouldn’t notice it except if we traveled very near the speed of light. So far we haven’t been able to do that and we would not notice the difference if it weren’t for atomic clocks that are accurate to the nanosecond.

The GPS system works because radio waves travel at the speed of light, and almost at the speed of light in our air. If you time the difference it takes to receive a signal from several GPS satellites, which are in fixed positions over the earth, then you can calculate your distance and position. GPS satellites are in geosynchronous orbits, taking 24 hours to go around the earth so they stay in a fixed position relative to the earth. Because they are fixed in orbit, and our computers keep very good time, we can determine the position of a person down to within 10 meters. The atmosphere has so little difference in the speed of light that it hardly enters the equation.

I hope this makes things clearer. Before you select a best answer look at who has the highest level and who has the largest number of best answers. I am not an astronomer, a PHD, a scientist or even a physicist. I have read a lot of science fiction and I have a very good education, I know what I am talking about and I have shown you some of the proof behind it with the Wikipedia article.

Answer 10

it sure does, alex. it sure does.