So we need to find a way to travel faster than the speed of light then right?
2007-12-30 02:11:31 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
There is no way to travel at or faster than the speed of light. Not for us, not for anybody...ever. Even traveling at 1/10 the speed of light presents problems which are technologically almost insurmountable.
So yes, it would take years to get to other stars. At the almost unthinkable speed of 1/50 the speed of light, it would take 200 years to get to the nearest star outside of our solar system.
2007-12-30 02:21:56 · answer #1 · answered by Brant 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes....even though man doesn't know of anything that travels faster than light, light still takes a long time to traverse the universe. this is because the universe is HUGE!!!!! it is amazingly big, so big we can't even begin to imagine its depths.
the speed of light is 3 x 10^8 m/s. that means that light can cover 300 million metres in 1 second. this is pretty amazingly fast (the fastest speeds that we have reached in our planes and shuttles is not even a tenth of the speed of light) but for the distances involved in space, light doesnt travel fast enough. do u know that if the closest star (proxima centauri) is about 4.2 light years away from us, that means that light takes 4.2 earth years to reach us? so whenever you gaze up into the night sky at proxima centauri with a telescope, you are actually seeing the star as it was 4.2 years ago.
so yes, we do need a faster way of travel. any ideas?
2007-12-30 03:57:24 · answer #2 · answered by amandac 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not exactly 'anywhere'. It'll take years to go to places like outside our galaxy and stuff.
Sadly, we can't travel faster than the speed of light.
It's not like a speed limit that says 90mph, and you go like 'oh, I'll press it to 100mph'. The speed of light is a definite limiting factor. Nothing can go faster. If you do manage to reach 99.9% or so of the speed of light, your mass will start expanding at alarming rates. Check out the research with the particle accelerators for more info. Try reading up what Einstein originally wrote about this.
I used to think we could go faster than light too, lol. Sigh. =)
2007-12-30 02:20:37 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
it depends on where you want to go. it is impossible to travel at or greater than the speed of life. Even if it's possible, it would still take years to travel far places, that's why we measure great distances in outer space as 'light-years'. 5 light years means it would take 5 years to reach that place travelling at the speed of light.
2007-12-30 02:18:31 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
As far as the universe goes the speed of light is a snail's pace. If you homed in on a body moving at the speed of light across the Andromeda Galaxy you would detect almost no movement over your life time.
2007-12-30 03:16:48 · answer #5 · answered by johnandeileen2000 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
While it IS impossible to travel AT the speed of light, and for all intents and purposes, even NEAR the speed of light, it is mathematically allowed to travel FASTER.
This is definitely not an easy concept, nor an easy bit of engineering.
It is 100% definite, that as long as you believe it to be impossible, we will never figure out how to do it.
2007-12-30 02:23:31 · answer #6 · answered by Faesson 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yup. Better than 4 years to reach the nearest star, which doesn't seem to have any inhabitable planets. Check ANALOG magazines old fact and speculative articles online for more information on ways to go Faster Than Light that the physicists are kicking around.
2007-12-30 05:29:01 · answer #7 · answered by balloon buster 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It would take years for the folks left behind watching you travel. But for you the trip would be instantaneous -- you'd be there in no time at all.
You'd see the entire universe foreshortened to an infinitely thin wafer. There'd be no distance for you to go in the forward direction at all, so in a real sense you'd be there right away.
Actually you'd sort of be "everywhere" in your direction of travel all at once. The big problem would be trying to come to a stop from such an enormous speed (ignoring the challenge of getting up to speed in the first place!) without just going "splat" on your spaceship's viewscreen.
2007-12-30 02:27:32 · answer #8 · answered by Steve H 5 · 3⤊ 0⤋
First Question = Yes
Second Question = Not possible, but Yes also should you desire to reach distant stars in your lifetime.
Consider the G Forces in accelerating to these speeds and you will drop the idea altogether. Astronauts barely survive going from Zero to the roughly 25,000 MPH Escape Velocity required to gain orbit. You suggest they should accelerate to a speed 100,000 times that fast...there is going to be a bunch of mush inside your space craft - no one left alive.
2007-12-30 06:28:08 · answer #9 · answered by zahbudar 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It takes light four years to get to the star system nearest our sun. But it's impossible to travel faster than light.
2007-12-30 02:17:50 · answer #10 · answered by someone else 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋