does that mean it will take 5000 years to travel to vy canis majoris!!
2007-12-29 12:12:46 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
a light year how FAR light travels (in a vaccum - space) in a year.
its 186,000 miles/second
5,878,499,810,000 miles in 1 year.
if we watched, LIGHT would seem to take 5000 years to travel 5000 light years. (thats a whooping 29,392,499,050,000,000 miles)
BUT from the light's point of view, time would seem to slow down. so its 5000 year trip might actually end up like 500 years. its called time dilation.
the faster you move, the slower time travels for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation
2007-12-29 12:18:36 · answer #1 · answered by Mercury 2010 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
It means that if you were to travel at 186,000 miles per second (that would mean orbiting the earth 7+ times in 1 second!) and were to maintain that spead for 5000 years, the distance you would have traveled would be 5000 light years; a measure of distance.
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2007-12-29 12:25:17 · answer #2 · answered by Bryan 4 · 5⤊ 1⤋
It means that if we ever reach the speed of light -which we don´t have the slightest idea on how-we would reach vy canis majoris in 5,000 years.
2007-12-29 12:54:36 · answer #3 · answered by Asker 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The light year is a common unit of distance when talking about distances to other objects in space outside our solar system.
A light year is the distance that light travels in one year (light travels at the speed of light and that's the fastest velocity of anything in our universe).
So if something is 5000 light years away, it means that light from that object takes 5000 years to get to Earth.
But if we were to go there by spaceship, it would take a lot longer, since nothing can travel at the speed of light (except light, of course).
For comparison, a light year is about 9 trillion kilometers. That's a lot of zeros if scientists were to talk about those kinds of distances in kilometers or miles.
2007-12-29 12:50:45 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
The light you are seeing originated 5000 years ago.
2007-12-30 00:43:27 · answer #5 · answered by dhiraj_reddy1988 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
5000 light years means that it would take 5000 years for light to travel that distance
2007-12-29 13:12:50 · answer #6 · answered by Valentine Smith 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It depends at what pace. If you travel at the speed of light, yes, it would take 5000 years.
2007-12-29 12:17:42 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
First that is pretty far. Like it ain't across the street!
Light travels (approx) 186,000 miles per second.
186,000 miles/second * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 5,865,696,000,000 miles/year.
A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers). That's a long way!
You multiply that by 5000 and you have your answer.
2007-12-29 12:24:04 · answer #8 · answered by traveler_90712 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
light travels at 300000000 m/s
how far would a photon, traveling at that speed, be able to get in 5000 years?
answer: 47304000000000000000 meters
it is that far away if it is 5000 light years away.
2007-12-29 16:41:57 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
In our frame of reference, the light we see today from that star left the star 5,000 years ago.
If we could travel there at 1,000 km/s (we are nowhere near capable of going that fast yet), it would take us one and a half million years.
In Galactic terms, 5,000 light years is only one fifth (20%) of the distance to the centre of our Galaxy.
2007-12-29 12:32:05 · answer #10 · answered by Raymond 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋