travel light years

How Long Would It Take To Travel A Light Year

Using the fastest man-made vehicle, NASA’s Juno spacecraft, which travels at 165,000 mph (365,000 kmph), it would take 2,958 years to travel a light year. A light year is equivalent to about 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers).

Traveling at the speed of light would be the fastest way to cover vast distances in space, but current technology makes it impossible for humans or even our most advanced spacecraft to reach this speed.

Can people match the speed of a light year?

According to Einstein, it is impossible to match the speed of light. It is because light is the fastest thing in the universe, traveling at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second). There is not one thing that we could invent that could even match a fraction of how fast light travels.

Some scientists have theorized that a new type of engine, called a warp drive , could potentially allow humans to reach the speed of travel required to match the speed of light. However, even if future spacecrafts were able to achieve this level of propulsion, it would still take thousands of years to travel from one star system to another.

Despite the challenges, scientists continue to study space travel at faster-than-light speeds, as they are optimistic that one day we will be able to explore the vast reaches of our universe and even discover life on other planets.

For now, it would take many thousands of years to travel a light year using current technology. However, scientists remain hopeful that one day we will be able to explore the far reaches of space and perhaps even discover other life forms in distant star systems. Until then, we can continue marveling at the

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is a light-year.

Light-year is the distance light travels in one year. Light zips through interstellar space at 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second and 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers) per year.

We use light-time to measure the vast distances of space.

It’s the distance that light travels in a specific period of time. Also: LIGHT IS FAST, nothing travels faster than light.

How far can light travel in one minute? 11,160,000 miles. It takes 43.2 minutes for sunlight to reach Jupiter, about 484 million miles away. Light is fast, but the distances are vast . In an hour, light can travel 671 million miles.

Earth is about eight light minutes from the Sun. A trip at light-speed to the very edge of our solar system – the farthest reaches of the Oort Cloud, a collection of dormant comets way, way out there – would take about 1.87 years. Keep going to Proxima Centauri, our nearest neighboring star, and plan on arriving in 4.25 years at light speed.

When we talk about the enormity of the cosmos, it’s easy to toss out big numbers – but far more difficult to wrap our minds around just how large, how far, and how numerous celestial bodies really are.

To get a better sense, for instance, of the true distances to exoplanets – planets around other stars – we might start with the theater in which we find them, the Milky Way galaxy

Our galaxy is a gravitationally bound collection of stars, swirling in a spiral through space. Based on the deepest images obtained so far, it’s one of about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Groups of them are bound into clusters of galaxies, and these into superclusters; the superclusters are arranged in immense sheets stretching across the universe, interspersed with dark voids and lending the whole a kind of spiderweb structure. Our galaxy probably contains 100 to 400 billion stars, and is about 100,000 light-years across. That sounds huge, and it is, at least until we start comparing it to other galaxies. Our neighboring Andromeda galaxy, for example, is some 220,000 light-years wide. Another galaxy, IC 1101, spans as much as 4 million light-years.

Based on observations by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, we can confidently predict that every star you see in the sky probably hosts at least one planet. Realistically, we’re most likely talking about multi-planet systems rather than just single planets. In our galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, this pushes the number of planets potentially into the trillions. Confirmed exoplanet detections (made by Kepler and other telescopes, both in space and on the ground) now come to more than 4,000 – and that’s from looking at only tiny slices of our galaxy. Many of these are small, rocky worlds that might be at the right temperature for liquid water to pool on their surfaces.

The nearest-known exoplanet is a small, probably rocky planet orbiting Proxima Centauri – the next star over from Earth. A little more than four light-years away, or 24 trillion miles. If an airline offered a flight there by jet, it would take 5 million years. Not much is known about this world; its close orbit and the periodic flaring of its star lower its chances of being habitable.

The TRAPPIST-1 system is seven planets, all roughly in Earth’s size range, orbiting a red dwarf star about 40 light-years away. They are very likely rocky, with four in the “habitable zone” – the orbital distance allowing potential liquid water on the surface. And computer modeling shows some have a good chance of being watery – or icy – worlds. In the next few years, we might learn whether they have atmospheres or oceans, or even signs of habitability.

One of the most distant exoplanets known to us in the Milky Way is Kepler-443b. Traveling at light speed, it would take 3,000 years to get there. Or 28 billion years, going 60 mph.

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How Far is a Light Year?

How far is a light-year ? It might seem like a weird question because isn’t a ‘year’ a unit of time, and ‘far’ a unit of distance? While that is correct, a ‘light-year’ is actually a measure of distance. A light-year is the distance light can travel in one year.

Light is the fastest thing in our Universe traveling through interstellar space at 186,000 miles/second (300,000 km/sec). In one year, light can travel 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion km).

A light year is a basic unit astronomers use to measure the vast distances in space.

To give you a great example of how far a light year actually is, it will take Voyager 1 (NASA’s longest-lived spacecraft) over 17,000 years to reach 1 light year in distance traveling at a speed of 61,000 kph.

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Why Do We Use Light-Years?

Because space is so vast, the measurements we use here on Earth are not very helpful and would result in enormous numbers.

When talking about locations in our own galaxy we would have numbers with over 18 zeros. Instead, astronomers use light-time measurements to measure vast distances in space. A light-time measurement is how far light can travel in a given increment of time.

• Light-minute: 11,160,000 miles
• Light-hour: 671 million miles
• Light-year: 5.88 trillion miles

Understanding Light-Years

To help wrap our heads around how to use light-years, let’s look at how far things are away from the Earth starting with our closest neighbor, the Moon.

The Moon is 1.3 light-seconds from the Earth.

Earth is about 8 light-minutes (~92 million miles) away from the Sun. This means light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach us.

Jupiter is approximately 35 light minutes from the Earth. This means if you shone a light from Earth it would take about a half hour for it to hit Jupiter.

Pluto is not the edge of our solar system, in fact, past Pluto, there is the Kieper Belt , and past this is the Oort Cloud . The Oort cloud is a spherical layer of icy objects surrounding our entire solar system.

If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you 1.87 years to reach the edge of the Oort cloud. This means that our solar system is about 4 light-years across from edge to edge of the Oort Cloud.

The distance between the Sun and Interstellar Space. NASA/JPL-Caltech .

The nearest known exoplanet orbits the star Proxima Centauri , which is four light years away (~24 trillion miles). If a modern-day jet were to fly to this exoplanet it would not arrive for 5 million years.

One of the most distant exoplanets is 3,000 light-years (17.6 quadrillion miles) away from us in the Milky Way. If you were to travel at 60 miles an hour, you would not reach this exoplanet for 28 billion years.

Our Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years across (~588 quadrillion miles). Moving further into our Universe, our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy is 2.537 million light-years (14.7 quintillion miles) away from us.

The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.537 million light-years away from us.

Light, a Window into the Past

While we cannot actually travel through time, we can see into the past. How? We see objects because they either emit light or light has bounced off their surface and is traveling back to us.

Even though light is the fastest thing in our Universe, it takes time to reach us. This means that for any object we are seeing it how it was in the past. How far in the past? However long it took the light to reach us.

For day-to-day objects like a book or your dog, it takes a mere fraction of a fraction of a second for the light bouncing off the object to reach your eye. The further away an object is, the further into its past you are looking.

For instance, light from the Sun takes about 8 minutes to reach Earth, this means we are always seeing the Sun how it looked 8 minutes ago if you were on its surface.

The differences between Lunar Distance, an Astronomical Unit, and a Light Year. Illustration by Star Walk .

Traveling back through our solar system, Jupiter is approximately 30 light-minutes from Earth, so we see Jupiter how it looked 30 minutes ago if you were on its surface. Extending out into the Universe to our neighbor the Andromeda galaxy, we see it how it was 2.537 million years ago.

If there is another civilization out in the Universe watching Earth, they would not see us here today, they would see Earth in the past. A civilization that lives 65 million light-years away would see dinosaurs roaming the Earth.

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What Is a Light Year? Definition and Examples

The light year (ly) is a unit of length that is the distance light travels in a vacuum in one Earth year. One light year is approximately 9.46  trillion  kilometers (9.46 x 10 12  km) or 5.88 trillion miles (5.88 x 10 12  mi). The light year is used to describe distances to stars without having to use very large numbers.

Abbreviations for light year and its multiple are:

• ly – one light year
• kly – 1000 light years or one kilolight year
• Mly – 1,000,000 light years or one megalight year
• Gly – 1,000,000,000 light year or one gigalight year

Examples of Distances in Light Years

Here is a light of astronomical objects and their distance from the Sun in light years:

How Long Is a Light Year?

One common misconception about the light year is thinking it is a unit of time. This arises because the unit has the word “year” in it. The length of a light year is a length or distance, not a time (9.46 x 10 12  kilometers or 5.88 x 10 12  miles).

Julian Year vs Gregorian Year

The light year is defined with the speed of light defined as 299792458 m/s and the year being a Julian year (365.25 days).

There are different ways to measure the length of a year on Earth. The light year is defined as distance light travels in a Julian year (365.25 days). This is slightly different from the Gregorian year (365.2425 days). The Gregorian year is the type of year most of the world uses, based on the Gregorian calendar. Before 1984, astronomers defined the light year using a measured speed of light (as opposed to a defined speed) and a tropical year (time it takes for the Earth to return to the same position, like summer solstice to summer solstice, which is 31556925.9747 ephemeris seconds). Before 1984, a light year was approximately 9.460530×10 12  km. For the most part, the change doesn’t make much of a difference, but it’s good to know!

Light Year, Parsec, and AU

In addition to the light year, two other units of length are used in astronomy:

The astronomical unit (AU or au) is the distance from the Sun to the Earth. The distance between the Sun and Earth changes throughout the year because Earth’s orbit is an ellipse, but is equal to approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. In 2012, the AU was defined as exactly 149,597,870,700 meters. This is approximately 92,9555807 million miles. The modern AU definition is based on the definition of the meter, while retaining the spirit of the original definition. Because the AU is a relatively short distance (in astronomy), scientists use the astronomical unit to measure distances within the solar system or around other stars.

The parsec (pc) is a unit of length defined as exactly 648000/ π astronomical units. It is the distance from the Sun to an astronomical object with a parallax angle of one arcsecond. One parsec is equal to about 3.3 light years, 210,000 AU, 31 trillion kilometers, or 19 trillion miles. It is used to measure large distances in astronomy. Multiples of parsecs are used for enormous distances, like kiloparsecs (kpc) within the Milky Way, megaparsecs (Mpc) for mid-distance galaxies, and gigaparsecs (GPc) for distant galaxies and quasars.

In summary:

• A light year (ly) is the distance light travels in one Earth year. It is 9.4607×10 15 meters or 5.8786×10 12 miles, about 63 astronomical units or about 0.3 parsecs. It is an intermediate unit of astronomical distance.
• An astronomical unit (AU) is approximately the distance from the Sun to the Earth. It is defined as exactly 149,597,870,700 meters or about 92,9555807 million miles. It is the shortest astronomical unit of distance.
• A parsec (pc) is the distance from the Sun to a distance object with a parallax angle of one arcsecond. It is about 3.3 light years, 31 trillion kilometers, or 19 trillion miles.
• Cox, Arthur N., ed. (2000). Allen’s Astrophysical Quantities (4th ed.). New York: AIP Press / Springer. ISBN 978-0387987460.
• Hussmann, H.; Sohl, F.; Oberst, J. (2009), “Astronomical units.” in Joachim E Trümper (ed.). Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Cosmology – Volume VI/4B Solar System . Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-88054-7.
• Luque, B.; Ballesteros, F. J. (2019). “To the Sun and beyond.” Nature Physics . 15: 1302. doi: 10.1038/s41567-019-0685-3
• McNamara, D. H.; Madsen, J. B.; Barnes, J.; Ericksen, B. F. (2000). “The Distance to the Galactic Center.” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 112 (768): 202. doi: 10.1086/316512
• Seidelmann, P. Kenneth (ed.) (1992). Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac . Mill Valley, California: University Science Books. ISBN 978-0-935702-68-2.

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What is a light-year?

The light-year is an indispensable unit of measurement for anyone trying to understand outer space. Get a group of astronomers talking, and you’ll hear them say “light-years” about as often as you hear football fans mention “yards.”

For nonscientists, though, the light-year can be a puzzling concept. It’s a unit of distance even though it might sound like a unit of time. Adding to the confusion, sci-fi movies and TV shows routinely bungle the concept.

Even the original "Star Trek" series got light-years wrong. In a 1968 episode, the alien princess Elaan of Troyius tells Captain Kirk she’d rather hide in her room for “10 light-years” than come out and speak to him. Oops.

How far is a light-year?

A light-year is the distance a beam of light travels in a vacuum in one year. It’s important to specify a vacuum because light slows as it passes through any kind of matter. (In water, for instance, it travels about 25 percent slower.) Most of the universe is a near-perfect vacuum, so astronomers can generally assume that light is moving at its top speed .

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Light travels at 299,792,458 meters (186,282.397 miles) per second. Multiply that number by the number of seconds in a year (31,557,600), and you get your answer: One light-year is 9,460,730,473,000 kilometers, or 5,878,625,373,000 miles.

That’s probably more digits than you were looking for. Round it off to 6 trillion miles, and you’re still close enough for any in-the-know nerd conversation.

Why do astronomers measure distance in light-years?

Familiar units like kilometers and miles are absurdly small for describing the vastness of the cosmos. Take the example of Proxima Centauri , the nearest star beyond the sun. You could say that it's about 24,900,000,000,000 miles away — or save a lot of breath and call the distance a tidy 4.24 light-years.

Most of the stars you see at night lie within a few hundred light-years of Earth. The Milky Way galaxy in which we live happens to be a nice, round 100,000 light-years across . The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.54 million light-years away — a big number but still a whole lot more manageable than “14 quintillion, 900 quadrillion miles.”

So light-years are only a measure of distance, not time?

Strictly speaking, yes. A light-year is a unit of distance, just like feet and inches. If you want to avoid any confusion, you can stop right here.

But there’s another fascinating side to the light-year story. Since light moves at a finite speed , everything you see is outdated: Your view of the world is actually an image of what things looked like at the instant their light began traveling toward you.

If you're staring across a room, the lag is just billionths of a second — utterly imperceptible. Look at the moon, and you see it as it was about a second-and-a-half ago. Watch a sunset, and you're seeing the sun of 8.3 minutes ago.

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The effect is far more pronounced for the stars. They're light-years away, so when you look at them you're looking years into the past.

Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, lies 8.6 light-years from Earth, which means the light you’re seeing left it 8.6 years ago. Put another way, we always see Sirius as it was 8.6 years ago. Deneb, a prominent summer star in the constellation Cygnus, is about 2,500 light-years away. Its twinkling glow was already en route to us while Aristotle was alive.

And remember, other galaxies are even more distant. Powerful telescopes like Hubble can detect galaxies whose light has been traveling our way for billions of years. Thus those ethereal Hubble images show us galaxies as they were billions of years ago — in some cases, from a time before Earth came to be.

In short, a light-year describes distance only — but light itself provides a sort of time machine, allowing us to observe the cosmos as it was long ago.

How do we know the speed of light?

The crucial insight came from Ole Rømer, a 17th-century Danish astronomer. During the 1660s, he was studying one of Jupiter’s moons, Io , when he noticed something odd: When Jupiter and Earth were at their greatest distance from one another, Io would slip into Jupiter’s shadow a few minutes later than astronomers predicted. When the two planets were closest together, the event seemed to occur a few minutes early.

Rømer realized that the delay had nothing to do with Io. Rather, it was an illusion caused by the time it takes for light to span the extra distance when Earth and Jupiter are on opposite sides of the sun. His calculations showed that light travels 131,000 miles a second — a remarkably good estimate, considering that he was doing this work just 60 years after the invention of the telescope.

Who came up with the term light-year?

“The concept of light speed as a measurement of distance already happened by the end of the 17th century, following from the discovery of the finiteness of light speed by Rømer,” says Frédéric Arenou, an astronomer and science historian at the Paris Observatory.

People latched on to the idea so quickly that it’s impossible to credit any individual with certainty. Arenou points to one good candidate, however: the English scholar Francis Roberts, who in 1694 mused that “Light takes up more time in travelling from the stars to us, than we in making a West-India Voyage.”

At first, these ideas were necessarily vague because scientists had only a rough idea of how far away the stars are. The breakthrough moment came in 1838, when German astronomer Friedrich Bessel measured the exact distance to the star 61 Cygni. In describing the huge number he got, Bessel wrote that “light employs 10.3 years to traverse this distance.” That’s the closest thing to a specific moment when the specific concept of the light-year was born.

Within a couple of decades, the light-year was commonplace in popular science writing. But Arenou says professional astronomers long resisted using the term — and for a surprising reason. They considered the light-year insufficiently scientific, since it cannot be measured directly.

How do astronomers measure distances in light-years?

Bessel reckoned the distance to 61 Cygni by observing its parallax, the apparent back-and-forth motion in the sky caused by Earth’s motion around the sun.

Parallax is still one of astronomers’ most powerful tools for measuring distance. The European Space Agency spent 650 million Euros ($750 million) on the Gaia space telescope , which is currently using parallax to measure the distances to more than a billion stars across our galaxy.

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Beyond the Milky Way, where parallaxes are too small even for Gaia to detect, astronomers calculate distances by observing certain types of variable stars or brilliant supernova explosions . Those approaches still rely on parallax measurements as their point of reference, however.

Because their work is so deeply rooted in parallax, astronomers commonly use a second distance unit, the parsec (“parallax arc-second,” a small angle). One parsec equals 3.26 light-years. Sometimes the parsec is more scientifically relevant, but researchers often switch between the two terms for no obvious reason except style.

Unfortunately, the “sec” in parsec sounds like a unit of time, leading to more confusion. In the 1977 movie "Star Wars: A New Hope," Han Solo brags that he “ made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs .” Star Wars fans have tied themselves in knots trying to explain away that obvious goof. Better to stick with the light-year. It’s all the astronomy you need — and lets you dabble in time travel, too.

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Space Travel Calculator

One small step for man, one giant leap for humanity, how fast can we travel in space is interstellar travel possible, can humans travel at the speed of light – relativistic space travel, space travel calculator – relativistic rocket equation, intergalactic travel – fuel problem, how do i calculate the travel time to other planets.

Ever since the dawn of civilization, the idea of space travel has fascinated humans! Haven't we all looked up into the night sky and dreamed about space?

With the successful return of the first all-civilian crew of SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission after orbiting the Earth for three days, the dream of space travel looks more and more realistic now.

While traveling deep into space is still something out of science fiction movies like Star Trek and Star Wars, the tremendous progress made by private space companies so far seems very promising. Someday, space travel (or even interstellar travel) might be accessible to everyone!

It's never too early to start planning for a trip of a lifetime (or several lifetimes). You can also plan your own space trip and celebrate World Space Week in your own special way!

This space travel calculator is a comprehensive tool that allows you to estimate many essential parameters in theoretical interstellar space travel . Have you ever wondered how fast we can travel in space, how much time it will take to get to the nearest star or galaxy, or how much fuel it requires? In the following article, using a relativistic rocket equation, we'll try to answer questions like "Is interstellar travel possible?" , and "Can humans travel at the speed of light?"

Explore the world of light-speed travel of (hopefully) future spaceships with our relativistic space travel calculator!

If you're interested in astrophysics, check out our other calculators. Find out the speed required to leave the surface of any planet with the escape velocity calculator or estimate the parameters of the orbital motion of planets using the orbital velocity calculator .

Although human beings have been dreaming about space travel forever, the first landmark in the history of space travel is Russia's launch of Sputnik 2 into space in November 1957. The spacecraft carried the first earthling, the Russian dog Laika , into space.

Four years later, on 12 April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin became the first human in space when his spacecraft, the Vostok 1, completed one orbit of Earth.

The first American astronaut to enter space was Alan Shepard (May 1961). During the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to land on the moon. Between 1969 and 1972, a total of 12 astronauts walked the moon, marking one of the most outstanding achievements for NASA.

In recent decades, space travel technology has seen some incredible advancements. Especially with the advent of private space companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin, the dream of space tourism is looking more and more realistic for everyone!

However, when it comes to including women, we are yet to make great strides. So far, 566 people have traveled to space. Only 65 of them were women .

Although the first woman in space, a Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova , who orbited Earth 48 times, went into orbit in June 1963. It was only in October 2019 that the first all-female spacewalk was completed by NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch.

Women's access to space is still far from equal, but there are signs of progress, like NASA planning to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon by 2024 with its Artemis missions. World Space Week is also celebrating the achievements and contributions of women in space this year!

In the following sections, we will explore the feasibility of space travel and its associated challenges.

Interstellar space is a rather empty place. Its temperature is not much more than the coldest possible temperature, i.e., an absolute zero. It equals about 3 kelvins – minus 270 °C or minus 455 °F. You can't find air there, and therefore there is no drag or friction. On the one hand, humans can't survive in such a hostile place without expensive equipment like a spacesuit or a spaceship, but on the other hand, we can make use of space conditions and its emptiness.

The main advantage of future spaceships is that, since they are moving through a vacuum, they can theoretically accelerate to infinite speeds! However, this is only possible in the classical world of relatively low speeds, where Newtonian physics can be applied. Even if it's true, let's imagine, just for a moment, that we live in a world where any speed is allowed. How long will it take to visit the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way?

We will begin our intergalactic travel with a constant acceleration of 1 g (9.81 m/s² or 32.17 ft/s²) because it ensures that the crew experiences the same comfortable gravitational field as the one on Earth. By using this space travel calculator in Newton's universe mode, you can find out that you need about 2200 years to arrive at the nearest galaxy! And, if you want to stop there, you need an additional 1000 years . Nobody lives for 3000 years! Is intergalactic travel impossible for us, then? Luckily, we have good news. We live in a world of relativistic effects, where unusual phenomena readily occur.

In the previous example, where we traveled to Andromeda Galaxy, the maximum velocity was almost 3000 times greater than the speed of light c = 299,792,458 m/s , or about c = 3 × 10 8 m/s using scientific notation.

However, as velocity increases, relativistic effects start to play an essential role. According to special relativity proposed by Albert Einstein, nothing can exceed the speed of light. How can it help us with interstellar space travel? Doesn't it mean we will travel at a much lower speed? Yes, it does, but there are also a few new relativistic phenomena, including time dilation and length contraction, to name a few. The former is crucial in relativistic space travel.

Time dilation is a difference of time measured by two observers, one being in motion and the second at rest (relative to each other). It is something we are not used to on Earth. Clocks in a moving spaceship tick slower than the same clocks on Earth ! Time passing in a moving spaceship T T T and equivalent time observed on Earth t t t are related by the following formula:

where γ \gamma γ is the Lorentz factor that comprises the speed of the spaceship v v v and the speed of light c c c :

where β = v / c \beta = v/c β = v / c .

For example, if γ = 10 \gamma = 10 γ = 10 ( v = 0.995 c v = 0.995c v = 0.995 c ), then every second passing on Earth corresponds to ten seconds passing in the spaceship. Inside the spacecraft, events take place 90 percent slower; the difference can be even greater for higher velocities. Note that both observers can be in motion, too. In that case, to calculate the relative relativistic velocity, you can use our velocity addition calculator .

Let's go back to our example again, but this time we're in Einstein's universe of relativistic effects trying to reach Andromeda. The time needed to get there, measured by the crew of the spaceship, equals only 15 years ! Well, this is still a long time, but it is more achievable in a practical sense. If you would like to stop at the destination, you should start decelerating halfway through. In this situation, the time passed in the spaceship will be extended by about 13 additional years .

Unfortunately, this is only a one-way journey. You can, of course, go back to Earth, but nothing will be the same. During your interstellar space travel to the Andromeda Galaxy, about 2,500,000 years have passed on Earth. It would be a completely different planet, and nobody could foresee the fate of our civilization.

A similar problem was considered in the first Planet of the Apes movie, where astronauts crash-landed back on Earth. While these astronauts had only aged by 18 months, 2000 years had passed on Earth (sorry for the spoilers, but the film is over 50 years old at this point, you should have seen it by now). How about you? Would you be able to leave everything you know and love about our galaxy forever and begin a life of space exploration?

Now that you know whether interstellar travel is possible and how fast we can travel in space, it's time for some formulas. In this section, you can find the "classical" and relativistic rocket equations that are included in the relativistic space travel calculator.

There could be four combinations since we want to estimate how long it takes to arrive at the destination point at full speed as well as arrive at the destination point and stop. Every set contains distance, time passing on Earth and in the spaceship (only relativity approach), expected maximum velocity and corresponding kinetic energy (if you turn on the advanced mode ), and the required fuel mass (see Intergalactic travel – fuel problem section for more information). The notation is:

• a a a — Spaceship acceleration (by default 1   g 1\rm\, g 1 g ). We assume it is positive a > 0 a > 0 a > 0 (at least until halfway) and constant.
• m m m — Spaceship mass. It is required to calculate kinetic energy (and fuel).
• d d d — Distance to the destination. Note that you can select it from the list or type in any other distance to the desired object.
• T T T — Time that passed in a spaceship, or, in other words, how much the crew has aged.
• t t t — Time that passed in a resting frame of reference, e.g., on Earth.
• v v v — Maximum velocity reached by the spaceship.
• K E \rm KE KE — Maximum kinetic energy reached by the spaceship.

The relativistic space travel calculator is dedicated to very long journeys, interstellar or even intergalactic, in which we can neglect the influence of the gravitational field, e.g., from Earth. We didn't include in the destination list our closest celestial bodies, like the Moon or Mars, because it would be pointless. For them, we need different equations that also take into consideration gravitational force.

Newton's universe – arrive at the destination at full speed

It's the simplest case because here, T T T equals t t t for any speed. To calculate the distance covered at constant acceleration during a certain time, you can use the following classical formula:

Since acceleration is constant, and we assume that the initial velocity equals zero, you can estimate the maximum velocity using this equation:

and the corresponding kinetic energy:

Newton's universe – arrive at destination and stop

In this situation, we accelerate to the halfway point, reach maximum velocity, and then decelerate to stop at the destination point. Distance covered during the same time is, as you may expect, smaller than before:

Acceleration remains positive until we're halfway there (then it is negative – deceleration), so the maximum velocity is:

and the kinetic energy equation is the same as the previous one.

Einstein's universe – arrive at the destination at full speed

The relativistic rocket equation has to consider the effects of light-speed travel. These are not only speed limitations and time dilation but also how every length becomes shorter for a moving observer, which is a phenomenon of special relativity called length contraction. If l l l is the proper length observed in the rest frame and L L L is the length observed by a crew in a spaceship, then:

What does it mean? If a spaceship moves with the velocity of v = 0.995 c v = 0.995c v = 0.995 c , then γ = 10 \gamma = 10 γ = 10 , and the length observed by a moving object is ten times smaller than the real length. For example, the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy equals about 2,520,000 light years with Earth as the frame of reference. For a spaceship moving with v = 0.995 c v = 0.995c v = 0.995 c , it will be "only" 252,200 light years away. That's a 90 percent decrease or a 164 percent difference!

Now you probably understand why special relativity allows us to intergalactic travel. Below you can find the relativistic rocket equation for the case in which you want to arrive at the destination point at full speed (without stopping). You can find its derivation in the book by Messrs Misner, Thorne ( Co-Winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics ) and Wheller titled Gravitation , section §6.2. Hyperbolic motion. More accessible formulas are in the mathematical physicist John Baez's article The Relativistic Rocket :

• Time passed on Earth:
• Time passed in the spaceship:
• Maximum velocity:
• Relativistic kinetic energy remains the same:

The symbols sh ⁡ \sh sh , ch ⁡ \ch ch , and th ⁡ \th th are, respectively, sine, cosine, and tangent hyperbolic functions, which are analogs of the ordinary trigonometric functions. In turn, sh ⁡ − 1 \sh^{-1} sh − 1 and ch ⁡ − 1 \ch^{-1} ch − 1 are the inverse hyperbolic functions that can be expressed with natural logarithms and square roots, according to the article Inverse hyperbolic functions on Wikipedia.

Einstein's universe – arrive at destination point and stop

Most websites with relativistic rocket equations consider only arriving at the desired place at full speed. If you want to stop there, you should start decelerating at the halfway point. Below, you can find a set of equations estimating interstellar space travel parameters in the situation when you want to stop at the destination point :

So, after all of these considerations, can humans travel at the speed of light, or at least at a speed close to it? Jet-rocket engines need a lot of fuel per unit of weight of the rocket. You can use our rocket equation calculator to see how much fuel you need to obtain a certain velocity (e.g., with an effective exhaust velocity of 4500 m/s).

Hopefully, future spaceships will be able to produce energy from matter-antimatter annihilation. This process releases energy from two particles that have mass (e.g., electron and positron) into photons. These photons may then be shot out at the back of the spaceship and accelerate the spaceship due to the conservation of momentum. If you want to know how much energy is contained in matter, check out our E = mc² calculator , which is about the famous Albert Einstein equation.

Now that you know the maximum amount of energy you can acquire from matter, it's time to estimate how much of it you need for intergalactic travel. Appropriate formulas are derived from the conservation of momentum and energy principles. For the relativistic case:

where e x e^x e x is an exponential function, and for classical case:

Remember that it assumes 100% efficiency! One of the promising future spaceships' power sources is the fusion of hydrogen into helium, which provides energy of 0.008 mc² . As you can see, in this reaction, efficiency equals only 0.8%.

Let's check whether the fuel mass amount is reasonable for sending a mass of 1 kg to the nearest galaxy. With a space travel calculator, you can find out that, even with 100% efficiency, you would need 5,200 tons of fuel to send only 1 kilogram of your spaceship . That's a lot!

So can humans travel at the speed of light? Right now, it seems impossible, but technology is still developing. For example, a photonic laser thruster is a good candidate since it doesn't require any matter to work, only photons. Infinity and beyond is actually within our reach!

To calculate the time it takes to travel to a specific star or galaxy using the space travel calculator, follow these steps:

• Choose the acceleration : the default mode is 1 g (gravitational field similar to Earth's).
• Enter the spaceship mass , excluding fuel.
• Select the destination : pick the star, planet, galaxy you want to travel to from the dropdown menu.
• The distance between the Earth and your chosen stars will automatically appear. You can also input the distance in light-years directly.
• Define the aim : select whether you aim to " Arrive at destination and stop " or “ Arrive at destination at full speed ”.
• Pick the calculation mode : opt for either " Einstein's universe " mode for relativistic effects or " Newton's universe " for simpler calculations.
• Time passed in spaceship : estimated time experienced by the crew during the journey. (" Einstein's universe " mode)
• Time passed on Earth : estimated time elapsed on Earth during the trip. (" Einstein's universe " mode)
• Time passed : depends on frame of reference, e.g., on Earth. (" Newton's universe " mode)
• Required fuel mass : estimated fuel quantity needed for the journey.
• Maximum velocity : maximum speed achieved by the spaceship.

How long does it take to get to space?

It takes about 8.5 minutes for a space shuttle or spacecraft to reach Earth's orbit, i.e., the limit of space where the Earth's atmosphere ends. This dividing line between the Earth's atmosphere and space is called the Kármán line . It happens so quickly because the shuttle goes from zero to around 17,500 miles per hour in those 8.5 minutes .

How fast does the space station travel?

The International Space Station travels at an average speed of 28,000 km/h or 17,500 mph . In a single day, the ISS can make several complete revolutions as it circumnavigates the globe in just 90 minutes . Placed in orbit at an altitude of 350 km , the station is visible to the naked eye, looking like a dot crossing the sky due to its very bright solar panels.

How do I reach the speed of light?

To reach the speed of light, you would have to overcome several obstacles, including:

Mass limit : traveling at the speed of light would mean traveling at 299,792,458 meters per second. But, thanks to Einstein's theory of relativity, we know that an object with non-zero mass cannot reach this speed.

Energy : accelerating to the speed of light would require infinite energy.

Effects of relativity : from the outside, time would slow down, and you would shrink.

Why can't sound travel in space?

Sound can’t travel in space because it is a mechanical wave that requires a medium to propagate — this medium can be solid, liquid, or gas. In space, there is no matter, or at least not enough for sound to propagate. The density of matter in space is of the order 1 particle per cubic centimeter . While on Earth , it's much denser at around 10 20 particles per cubic centimeter .

BMR - Harris-Benedict equation

Ballistic coefficient, car crash force, voltage regulation.

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Scientists Have Calculated How Long It'll Take to Reach Distant Stars

Are we there yet?

• The researchers compared the predicted paths of four spacecraft to the paths of nearby stars, as measured by the Gaia space telescope, to see where and when they might overlap.
• According to their work , posted to the online pre-print server arXiv, it would take about 90,000 years for Pioneer 10 to swing within striking distance of a nearby star.

The intrepid Voyager 1 and 2 spacecrafts were launched in 1977, and despite having a roughly 12-year mission lifespan, are still hurtling through space and returning data to eager scientists on Earth. They’ve broken through barrier that protects our solar system and are now zipping through the interstellar medium along with Pioneer 10 and 11.

But how long might it take them, or another spacecraft, to actually reach another star system?

A team of scientists—Coryn Bailer-Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Switzerland and Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory—have done the calculations. Essentially, the pair found a way to chart how long it would take a spacecraft to get from our humble solar system to the next system over, according to a paper uploaded to the pre-print server arXiv.

In the quest for answers, Farnocchia and Bailer-Jones turned to the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope for help. For more than five years, Gaia has been gathering data on billions of stars , charting their orbits and path through the cosmos.

Using this data and data about the projected paths of both the voyager spacecrafts as well as Pioneer 10 and 11, which are careening toward the outer reaches of the solar system, the researchers were able to create a timeline of when these crafts might reach distant star systems. For those eager to visit other worlds, brace for some bad news.

Should they continue their transit, the four spacecraft will come within striking distance of approximately 60 stars in the next million years. And in that same amount of time, they’ll get even closer—try two parsecs, the equivalent of 6.5 light years—to about 10 stars.

Who will have the best shot at reaching and exploring a distant star? Pioneer 10 will swing within .231 parsecs the star system HIP 117795 in the Cassiopeia constellation in approximately 90,000 years. And how long before one of these spacecrafts is hijacked by the orbit of one of these stars? It’ll be about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years.

You'll have some time to kill.

Jennifer Leman is a science journalist and senior features editor at Popular Mechanics, Runner's World, and Bicycling. A graduate of the Science Communication Program at UC Santa Cruz, her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Scientific American, Science News and Nature. Her favorite stories illuminate Earth's many wonders and hazards.

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What is the speed of light? Here’s the history, discovery of the cosmic speed limit

On one hand, the speed of light is just a number: 299,792,458 meters per second. And on the other, it’s one of the most important constants that appears in nature and defines the relationship of causality itself.

As far as we can measure, it is a constant. It is the same speed for every observer in the entire universe. This constancy was first established in the late 1800’s with the experiments of Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at Case Western Reserve University . They attempted to measure changes in the speed of light as the Earth orbited around the Sun. They found no such variation, and no experiment ever since then has either.

Observations of the cosmic microwave background, the light released when the universe was 380,000 years old, show that the speed of light hasn’t measurably changed in over 13.8 billion years.

In fact, we now define the speed of light to be a constant, with a precise speed of 299,792,458 meters per second. While it remains a remote possibility in deeply theoretical physics that light may not be a constant, for all known purposes it is a constant, so it’s better to just define it and move on with life.

How was the speed of light first measured?

In 1676 the Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Romer made the first quantitative measurement of how fast light travels. He carefully observed the orbit of Io, the innermost moon of Jupiter. As the Earth circles the Sun in its own orbit, sometimes it approaches Jupiter and sometimes it recedes away from it. When the Earth is approaching Jupiter, the path that light has to travel from Io is shorter than when the Earth is receding away from Jupiter. By carefully measuring the changes to Io’s orbital period, Romer calculated a speed of light of around 220,000 kilometers per second.

Observations continued to improve until by the 19 th century astronomers and physicists had developed the sophistication to get very close to the modern value. In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell made a remarkable discovery. He was investigating the properties of electricity and magnetism, which for decades had remained mysterious in unconnected laboratory experiments around the world. Maxwell found that electricity and magnetism were really two sides of the same coin, both manifestations of a single electromagnetic force.

As Maxwell explored the consequences of his new theory, he found that changing magnetic fields can lead to changing electric fields, which then lead to a new round of changing magnetic fields. The fields leapfrog over each other and can even travel through empty space. When Maxwell went to calculate the speed of these electromagnetic waves, he was surprised to see the speed of light pop out – the first theoretical calculation of this important number.

What is the most precise measurement of the speed of light?

Because it is defined to be a constant, there’s no need to measure it further. The number we’ve defined is it, with no uncertainty, no error bars. It’s done. But the speed of light is just that – a speed. The number we choose to represent it depends on the units we use: kilometers versus miles, seconds versus hours, and so on. In fact, physicists commonly just set the speed of light to be 1 to make their calculations easier. So instead of trying to measure the speed light travels, physicists turn to more precisely measuring other units, like the length of the meter or the duration of the second. In other words, the defined value of the speed of light is used to establish the length of other units like the meter.

How does light slow down?

Yes, the speed of light is always a constant. But it slows down whenever it travels through a medium like air or water. How does this work? There are a few different ways to present an answer to this question, depending on whether you prefer a particle-like picture or a wave-like picture.

In a particle-like picture, light is made of tiny little bullets called photons. All those photons always travel at the speed of light, but as light passes through a medium those photons get all tangled up, bouncing around among all the molecules of the medium. This slows down the overall propagation of light, because it takes more time for the group of photons to make it through.

In a wave-like picture, light is made of electromagnetic waves. When these waves pass through a medium, they get all the charged particles in motion, which in turn generate new electromagnetic waves of their own. These interfere with the original light, forcing it to slow down as it passes through.

Either way, light always travels at the same speed, but matter can interfere with its travel, making it slow down.

Why is the speed of light important?

The speed of light is important because it’s about way more than, well, the speed of light. In the early 1900’s Einstein realized just how special this speed is. The old physics, dominated by the work of Isaac Newton, said that the universe had a fixed reference frame from which we could measure all motion. This is why Michelson and Morley went looking for changes in the speed, because it should change depending on our point of view. But their experiments showed that the speed was always constant, so what gives?

Einstein decided to take this experiment at face value. He assumed that the speed of light is a true, fundamental constant. No matter where you are, no matter how fast you’re moving, you’ll always see the same speed.

This is wild to think about. If you’re traveling at 99% the speed of light and turn on a flashlight, the beam will race ahead of you at…exactly the speed of light, no more, no less. If you’re coming from the opposite direction, you’ll still also measure the exact same speed.

This constancy forms the basis of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which tells us that while all motion is relative – different observers won’t always agree on the length of measurements or the duration of events – some things are truly universal, like the speed of light.

Can you go faster than light speed?

Nope. Nothing can. Any particle with zero mass must travel at light speed. But anything with mass (which is most of the universe) cannot. The problem is relativity. The faster you go, the more energy you have. But we know from Einstein’s relativity that energy and mass are the same thing. So the more energy you have, the more mass you have, which makes it harder for you to go even faster. You can get as close as you want to the speed of light, but to actually crack that barrier takes an infinite amount of energy. So don’t even try.

How is the speed at which light travels related to causality?

If you think you can find a cheat to get around the limitations of light speed, then I need to tell you about its role in special relativity. You see, it’s not just about light. It just so happens that light travels at this special speed, and it was the first thing we discovered to travel at this speed. So it could have had another name. Indeed, a better name for this speed might be “the speed of time.”

Related: Is time travel possible? An astrophysicist explains

We live in a universe of causes and effects. All effects are preceded by a cause, and all causes lead to effects. The speed of light limits how quickly causes can lead to effects. Because it’s a maximum speed limit for any motion or interaction, in a given amount of time there’s a limit to what I can influence. If I want to tap you on the shoulder and you’re right next to me, I can do it right away. But if you’re on the other side of the planet, I have to travel there first. The motion of me traveling to you is limited by the speed of light, so that sets how quickly I can tap you on the shoulder – the speed light travels dictates how quickly a single cause can create an effect.

The ability to go faster than light would allow effects to happen before their causes. In essence, time travel into the past would be possible with faster-than-light travel. Since we view time as the unbroken chain of causes and effects going from the past to the future, breaking the speed of light would break causality, which would seriously undermine our sense of the forward motion of time.

Why does light travel at this speed?

No clue. It appears to us as a fundamental constant of nature. We have no theory of physics that explains its existence or why it has the value that it does. We hope that a future understanding of nature will provide this explanation, but right now all investigations are purely theoretical. For now, we just have to take it as a given.

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SpaceX's Starship will go interstellar someday, Elon Musk says

"A future Starship, much larger and more advanced, will travel to other star systems."

SpaceX's Starship megarocket could eventually live up to its bold name.

A future iteration of Starship, which conducted its third-ever test flight last week , will go interstellar, according to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk .

"This Starship is designed to traverse our entire solar system and beyond to the cloud of objects surrounding us. A future Starship, much larger and more advanced, will travel to other star systems," Musk said via X early Monday morning (March 18).

Related: Relive SpaceX Starship's 3rd flight test in breathtaking photos

Starship consists of two stainless-steel elements: a huge first-stage booster called Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or just Ship.

Both of these vehicles are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, and both are powered by SpaceX's next-gen Raptor engine — 33 for Super Heavy and six for Ship.

When stacked, Starship stands about 400 feet (122 m) tall. It's the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, capable of carrying up to 165 tons (150 metric tons) to Earth orbit in its reusable configuration. For comparison, SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket has a maximum payload capacity of about 25 tons (23 metric tons). 

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Starship performed quite well on last week's test flight, making serious progress compared to its first two jaunts, which occurred in April and November of last year. For example, the first test mission lasted just four minutes and the second ended about eight minutes after launch. But Thursday's (March 14) flight lasted about 50 minutes, ending when the Ship broke apart during its reentry to Earth's atmosphere . 

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If you can't see SpaceX's Starship in person, you can score a model of your own. Standing at 13.77 inches (35 cm), this is a 1:375 ratio of SpaceX's Starship as a desktop model. The materials here are alloy steel and it weighs just 225g.

Note: Stock is low so you'll have to act quickly to get this. 

— SpaceX launches giant Starship rocket into space on epic 3rd test flight (video)

— Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars transportation system

— Is interstellar flight really possible?

SpaceX sees Starship helping humanity settle the moon and Mars . NASA buys into this vision: The agency selected Starship to be the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program . If all goes according to plan, Starship will put astronauts down on the moon for the first time on the Artemis 3 mission, which is tentatively scheduled to lift off in September 2026.

A lot more work, and many more test flights, will be needed to get Starship ready to carry astronauts in deep space. And getting an interstellar version up and running will require a far bigger leap — one that it's tough to imagine today.

Humanity is nowhere near developing a spacecraft that can travel between the stars on a reasonable timescale; the distances are just so intimidatingly huge. For example, the nearest star to our sun, the red dwarf Proxima Centauri , lies 4.2 light-years away. That's about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion kilometers). It would take a probe powered by conventional rocket propulsion tens of thousands of years to cover that exotic ground. 

Researchers have ideas about how to make the journey more feasible. The Breakthrough Starshot initiative , for instance, is working on a system that would accelerate sailcraft to 20% the speed of light using super-powerful ground-based lasers. Such vehicles could reach Proxima Centauri just 20 years or so after liftoff, if everything works out. 

That's a very big "if." And the Breakthrough Starshot craft would be tiny, with bodies about the size of a postage stamp. Developing an interstellar craft big enough to carry people would be a much taller order. 

That's apparently what Musk has in mind, given that this future interstellar Starship will be "much larger" than the current behemoth. You and I probably won't be around to see that future craft fly, if it ever does; Breakthrough Starshot, which was announced in 2016, has been eyeing a possible debut launch in the 2030s or 2040s , and even that timeline may be ambitious .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with  Space.com  and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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• danR There is no iteration of this series that could possibly be thought to be capable of interstellar travel except in the sense of unmanned/robotic/AI probes. Nobody is going to Alpha Centauri in anything less than a nuclear (fission) -powered spacecraft, which makes it rocketry crime that Nixon cancelled the Nerva Program some 50 years ago. Only in the past 10 years has any serious R&D been devoted to this, eg., the NASA/DARPA nuclear hybrid thermal/electric project, but the funding is still a pittance. Had NERVA been continued, actual manned missions to the reaches of the solar system could have been realized in the next 10 years. Elon is not sending anyone to the stars. It's been, paradoxically, Blue Origin that has been picking up nuclear propulsion contracts; but thanks to Nixon, they'll be at it for another 30 years before BO is stellar-bound. Reply
• billslugg I shook hands with Dick Nixon in Wayne, PA in May of 1968. Little did I know he would go on to commit rocketry crime. He seemed like such a nice guy at the time. Reply
• Actionjksn When they are able to put a Starship into LEO, and then start using other Starships to transfer LOX and methane to it and fill the tanks, while it is orbiting Earth, then I believe it will be capable of making a round trip to Mars. Just getting off the ground and then reaching orbit consumes a massive amount of fuel, especially LOX. If you fuel your tanks while in low Earth orbit you eliminate all of that fuel consumption. They need to slingshot out of LEO and head to Mars with full tanks. This also eliminates all of the wind resistance which also burns a lot of fuel. They might even be able to make the entire trip with just one engine, which would really save on fuel, while also saving wear and tear on the other engines. Reply

Actionjksn said: They might even be able to make the entire trip with just one engine

• Laz musk talks cow farts Reply
• Classical Motion At this present time, the only way to safely go to Mars is with a heavily shielded rotating structure. Lots of mass. And lots of supplies. Lots of mass too. It would take lots of fuel for lots of acceleration and lots of deceleration. So we would have to send a complete gas station and grocery/hardware store there to be available. And this doesn't include a plan B or a plan C.....for emergencies or hardware failures. It's a location without refuge. You must maintain an environment. A man machine made world. It's just not worth the time and money. You might possibly send a Starship interstellar, but it could never return. We might not be able to plot a course to another star. Following the star light only works if the craft is going faster than the star. And even then the course is a long curve trajectory, instead of the shortest intersecting bee line at the years future location. One would have to lead a star like leading a target. Even if you could go at light speed. If you aim a laser at a star you will always miss it. Except for Sol of course. Unless Sol's velocity can move it's diameter length in 8 minutes. Light does not bend, but emitter motion changes it's angle. Following a moving light is following an angle. Not just distance. Reply

Admin said: A future, more advanced version of SpaceX's Starship megarocket will travel to other star systems, according to Elon Musk. SpaceX's Starship will go interstellar someday, Elon Musk says : Read more

danR said: Nobody is going to Alpha Centauri in anything less than a nuclear (fission) -powered spacecraft, which makes it rocketry crime that Nixon cancelled the Nerva Program some 50 years ago.

Actionjksn said: This also eliminates all of the wind resistance which also burns a lot of fuel. They might even be able to make the entire trip with just one engine, which would really save on fuel, while also saving wear and tear on the other engines.

Classical Motion said: At this present time, the only way to safely go to Mars is with a heavily shielded rotating structure. Lots of mass. And lots of supplies.

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Is Time Travel Possible?

We all travel in time! We travel one year in time between birthdays, for example. And we are all traveling in time at approximately the same speed: 1 second per second.

We typically experience time at one second per second. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's space telescopes also give us a way to look back in time. Telescopes help us see stars and galaxies that are very far away . It takes a long time for the light from faraway galaxies to reach us. So, when we look into the sky with a telescope, we are seeing what those stars and galaxies looked like a very long time ago.

However, when we think of the phrase "time travel," we are usually thinking of traveling faster than 1 second per second. That kind of time travel sounds like something you'd only see in movies or science fiction books. Could it be real? Science says yes!

This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows galaxies that are very far away as they existed a very long time ago. Credit: NASA, ESA and R. Thompson (Univ. Arizona)

How do we know that time travel is possible?

More than 100 years ago, a famous scientist named Albert Einstein came up with an idea about how time works. He called it relativity. This theory says that time and space are linked together. Einstein also said our universe has a speed limit: nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (186,000 miles per second).

Einstein's theory of relativity says that space and time are linked together. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

What does this mean for time travel? Well, according to this theory, the faster you travel, the slower you experience time. Scientists have done some experiments to show that this is true.

For example, there was an experiment that used two clocks set to the exact same time. One clock stayed on Earth, while the other flew in an airplane (going in the same direction Earth rotates).

After the airplane flew around the world, scientists compared the two clocks. The clock on the fast-moving airplane was slightly behind the clock on the ground. So, the clock on the airplane was traveling slightly slower in time than 1 second per second.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Can we use time travel in everyday life?

We can't use a time machine to travel hundreds of years into the past or future. That kind of time travel only happens in books and movies. But the math of time travel does affect the things we use every day.

For example, we use GPS satellites to help us figure out how to get to new places. (Check out our video about how GPS satellites work .) NASA scientists also use a high-accuracy version of GPS to keep track of where satellites are in space. But did you know that GPS relies on time-travel calculations to help you get around town?

GPS satellites orbit around Earth very quickly at about 8,700 miles (14,000 kilometers) per hour. This slows down GPS satellite clocks by a small fraction of a second (similar to the airplane example above).

GPS satellites orbit around Earth at about 8,700 miles (14,000 kilometers) per hour. Credit: GPS.gov

However, the satellites are also orbiting Earth about 12,550 miles (20,200 km) above the surface. This actually speeds up GPS satellite clocks by a slighter larger fraction of a second.

Here's how: Einstein's theory also says that gravity curves space and time, causing the passage of time to slow down. High up where the satellites orbit, Earth's gravity is much weaker. This causes the clocks on GPS satellites to run faster than clocks on the ground.

The combined result is that the clocks on GPS satellites experience time at a rate slightly faster than 1 second per second. Luckily, scientists can use math to correct these differences in time.

If scientists didn't correct the GPS clocks, there would be big problems. GPS satellites wouldn't be able to correctly calculate their position or yours. The errors would add up to a few miles each day, which is a big deal. GPS maps might think your home is nowhere near where it actually is!

In Summary:

Yes, time travel is indeed a real thing. But it's not quite what you've probably seen in the movies. Under certain conditions, it is possible to experience time passing at a different rate than 1 second per second. And there are important reasons why we need to understand this real-world form of time travel.

If you liked this, you may like:

Why does time change when traveling close to the speed of light? A physicist explains

Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology

Disclosure statement

Michael Lam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Rochester Institute of Technology provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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Why does time change when traveling close to the speed of light? – Timothy, age 11, Shoreview, Minnesota

Imagine you’re in a car driving across the country watching the landscape. A tree in the distance gets closer to your car, passes right by you, then moves off again in the distance behind you.

Of course, you know that tree isn’t actually getting up and walking toward or away from you. It’s you in the car who’s moving toward the tree. The tree is moving only in comparison, or relative, to you – that’s what we physicists call relativity . If you had a friend standing by the tree, they would see you moving toward them at the same speed that you see them moving toward you.

In his 1632 book “ Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems ,” the astronomer Galileo Galilei first described the principle of relativity – the idea that the universe should behave the same way at all times, even if two people experience an event differently because one is moving in respect to the other.

If you are in a car and toss a ball up in the air, the physical laws acting on it, such as the force of gravity, should be the same as the ones acting on an observer watching from the side of the road. However, while you see the ball as moving up and back down, someone on the side of the road will see it moving toward or away from them as well as up and down.

Special relativity and the speed of light

Albert Einstein much later proposed the idea of what’s now known as special relativity to explain some confusing observations that didn’t have an intuitive explanation at the time. Einstein used the work of many physicists and astronomers in the late 1800s to put together his theory in 1905, starting with two key ingredients: the principle of relativity and the strange observation that the speed of light is the same for every observer and nothing can move faster. Everyone measuring the speed of light will get the same result, no matter where they are or how fast they are moving.

Let’s say you’re in the car driving at 60 miles per hour and your friend is standing by the tree. When they throw a ball toward you at a speed of what they perceive to be 60 miles per hour, you might logically think that you would observe your friend and the tree moving toward you at 60 miles per hour and the ball moving toward you at 120 miles per hour. While that’s really close to the correct value, it’s actually slightly wrong.

This discrepancy between what you might expect by adding the two numbers and the true answer grows as one or both of you move closer to the speed of light. If you were traveling in a rocket moving at 75% of the speed of light and your friend throws the ball at the same speed, you would not see the ball moving toward you at 150% of the speed of light. This is because nothing can move faster than light – the ball would still appear to be moving toward you at less than the speed of light. While this all may seem very strange, there is lots of experimental evidence to back up these observations.

Time dilation and the twin paradox

Speed is not the only factor that changes relative to who is making the observation. Another consequence of relativity is the concept of time dilation , whereby people measure different amounts of time passing depending on how fast they move relative to one another.

Each person experiences time normally relative to themselves. But the person moving faster experiences less time passing for them than the person moving slower. It’s only when they reconnect and compare their watches that they realize that one watch says less time has passed while the other says more.

This leads to one of the strangest results of relativity – the twin paradox , which says that if one of a pair of twins makes a trip into space on a high-speed rocket, they will return to Earth to find their twin has aged faster than they have. It’s important to note that time behaves “normally” as perceived by each twin (exactly as you are experiencing time now), even if their measurements disagree.

You might be wondering: If each twin sees themselves as stationary and the other as moving toward them, wouldn’t they each measure the other as aging faster? The answer is no, because they can’t both be older relative to the other twin.

The twin on the spaceship is not only moving at a particular speed where the frame of references stay the same but also accelerating compared with the twin on Earth. Unlike speeds that are relative to the observer, accelerations are absolute. If you step on a scale, the weight you are measuring is actually your acceleration due to gravity. This measurement stays the same regardless of the speed at which the Earth is moving through the solar system, or the solar system is moving through the galaxy or the galaxy through the universe.

Neither twin experiences any strangeness with their watches as one moves closer to the speed of light – they both experience time as normally as you or I do. It’s only when they meet up and compare their observations that they will see a difference – one that is perfectly defined by the mathematics of relativity.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to [email protected] . Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

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Everything you need to know about space tourism

Posted: October 12, 2023 | Last updated: October 12, 2023

Between floating in weightlessness, witnessing 16 sunrises a day and gazing into the infinite void, space travel sure sounds like an out-of-this-world experience. And now, it’s no longer a thing of the future.

That’s right, soon interstellar awe will be open to (almost) anyone, as billionaires Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk are pushing the space tourism industry to a higher orbit.

What is space tourism?

Well, it’s almost like regular tourism: travel for recreational and leisure purposes… but in outer space. Some organizations like the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and the Citizens in Space project prefer to use the terms “personal spaceflight” or “citizen space exploration,” though.

In a nutshell, it’s space travel for non-astronauts.

Who can travel to space?

Anyone ! Well, that is, anyone with enough money. No need to have any previous science qualifications or NASA training, especially since a trained crew will escort tourists on their galactic journey.

According to Virgin Galactic, future space tourists will be between 10 and 90 years old, and come from diverse professional and cultural backgrounds.

The only thing you need? The desire to explore the universe!

What is orbital travel?

The main difference between orbital and suborbital flights lies in the trajectory and speed of the vessels.

To go into orbit, a rocket or spaceship needs to follow a path that goes around the Earth at the very fast minimum speed of 7.7 kilometres (4.8 miles) per second, in order to keep circling and never fall back down.

It allows astronauts and travellers to stay in space for extended periods of time, hence it is for now the preferred type of flight.

What is suborbital travel?

A suborbital flight , which is what Branson and Bezos did, “just” requires enough energy to blast off to space and then naturally fall back to Earth, making a huge arc.

It requires less energy and is less costly than orbital flights, thus opening doors for relatively affordable space tourism in the future.

Passengers would experience up to six minutes of weightlessness and a grandiose view.

How do you prepare?

Although Virgin Galactic doesn’t explicitly list its physical requirements, they did say astronauts would have to pass certain medical checkups and training programs. Blue Origin, on the other hand, has said that training for suborbital trips will only take a day.

And of course, any space tourist will also have to pass a series of thorough tests to determine whether they’re fit to fly up there.

Once in space, you may have to perform small bouts of exercise to prevent muscle wasting , which takes place after just seven days.

What is lunar tourism?

As its name hints, lunar tourism is the project of sending paying travellers to the moon. The first one could happen as soon as 2023, and would consist of a loop flight.

But three types of lunar tourism could be available in the near future: circumlunar trajectory, lunar orbit, and even lunar landing.

How cool would it be to say to someone, upon returning from a lunar vacation, “I’ve literally loved you to the moon and back”?

Where does space tourism take place?

Admittedly, space is a vast place. So where exactly would tourists go ?

First, any space travel begins with the Kármán line , which lies at 100 kilometres (62 miles) above sea level and is commonly accepted as the limit between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.

Then, there are several options: orbital, suborbital, and lunar space tourism.

Have touristic space travels already occurred?

Yes! From 2001 to 2009, the Russian space agency and the U.S.-based space tourism company Space Adventures took seven (very wealthy) members of the public for several orbital space travels to the International Space Station.

The flights took place aboard the famous spacecraft Soyuz but stopped in 2010, since the crew of actual astronauts grew bigger and left no more seats available for paying space tourists.

Who were the first space tourists?

The American businessman Dennis Tito became officially the first space tourist in April 2001, when he stayed for seven days on the International Space Station.

He was followed by six multimillionaire fellows from various countries: South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, American scientist Gregory Olsen, Iranian engineer Anousheh Ansari (the first female space tourist), Hungarian-American computer programmer Charles Simonyi, British video game mogul Richard Garriott, and Canadian businessman Guy Laliberté.

On July 11, 2021, billionaire Richard Branson, along with three Virgin Galactic employees and two pilots, reached an altitude of 85 kilometres (53 miles) above Earth aboard his Virgin Galactic rocket plane, the Unity. Less than 10 days later, on July 20, the world’s richest man, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, briefly entered space on Blue Origin , his private space company’s reusable rocket. He was joined by his younger brother Mark, Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen, and Wally Funk, who, at 82 years old, became the oldest astronaut.

Who would be the space tourism “agencies”?

Unlike past tourism experiments, which took place aboard vessels sent off for scientific purposes, future travels will happen on private companies’ flights set up solely for space tourism.

Those pioneering aerospace companies are Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic ; SpaceX, founded by Tesla co-founder Elon Musk ; and Blue Origin , created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

When will space tourism happen?

Sooner than you think. According to Forbes , Virgin Galactic’s successful trip means the company could start sending civilians up into space as soon as early 2022. Likewise, Blue Origin, which has a Federal Aviation Administration licence for human space travel through August 2021, could officially enter the space tourism game by early 2022.

How much will it cost?

It’s not exactly clear at the moment, but there have been some indications. For example, Virgin Galactic began selling ticket reservations for US$250,000 and sold roughly 600, before a test crash in 2014 brought sales to a halt. They’re expected to start selling tickets again in 2022, but at a much higher price.

It was reported in 2018 that seats on Bezos’s Blue Origin would also cost in the ballpark of US$200,000 to US$300,000, but that could change given how high demand is. At a recent auction, the winning bid for a seat aboard the company’s first spaceflight was a whopping US$28 million .

The bottom line is, those hoping to take a trip around the stars will either need to know someone or have hundreds of thousands (likely even millions) of dollars to spare.

How do we get there?

The development of space tourism vehicles is still an ongoing project.

But a few options already exist, like Virgin Galactic’s spaceplanes that can carry up to eight people, or SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft , launched by the Falcon Heavy rocket.

Blue Origin’s New Shepard looks more like a regular rocket that takes off and lands vertically, but also claims to offer the biggest windows of any spacecraft—a good selling point. It comfortably sits six people and is fully autonomous, meaning no pilot onboard.

What does it feel like?

Needless to say, travelling to space is no walk in the park.

You’re eager to experience the joys of floating in microgravity? You better also get prepared to endure several physical discomforts: nausea and sea sickness, dizziness, headache, disorientation, puffy face, and bloodshot eyes.

But astronauts and previous space tourists agree that the body adjusts fairly quickly, getting used to its spatial environment in about three days.

Is it safe?

Safety is a reasonable concern , considering the many hazards involved in space travel: the probability of a crash, exposure to cosmic radiation, and even unknown dangers that could emerge with this new industry. But here is the real question for any adventurer: is the thrill worth the risk?

What is the food like?

For many tourists, food is a crucial criterion for a successful vacation. But outer space is no place for gourmets, at least not yet. Interstellar tourists can expect to enjoy mostly canned, modified, and pre-packaged meals (such as space burritos and freeze-dried ice cream). But soon, thanks to NASA’s veggie farm , space tourists might be able to savour space-grown salads.

What about the accommodations?

Orbital space travel allows you to stay up there for a few days or even weeks. At that point, you might want to stretch your legs outside of the spacecraft, right? Well, in the future, space stations could be used as hotels: the Genesis inflatable habitats by Bigelow Aerospace and the Space Island Project are existing examples. Make sure to book a room with a view of planet Earth!

How to pack a space suitcase?

Packing a suitcase for a trip through the cosmos is actually less of a headache than doing so for a weekend vacation on Earth. Just keep in mind that it’s impossible to do laundry in space, so pack clothes accordingly : stock up on underwear, light clothing (space station temperature is controlled at about 22 degrees Celsius, or 72 degrees Fahrenheit), and exercise outfits. Outerwear will be provided: an orange suit for takeoff and re-entry, and a white one for potential space strolls.

Is it eco-friendly?

With ecotourism being a growing trend and concern over the last few years, the question is legitimate. Well, bad news: space travel could have a negative impact by accelerating global warming . This would be caused by the black carbon released into the stratosphere after suborbital launches. But of course, entrepreneurs in the industry claim that the carbon footprint of space tourism would be minimal. The truth is, rockets emit 50 to 100 times more CO₂ per passenger than a regular flight. Considering that Virgin Galactic plans to do 400 trips per year, that’s a lot of CO₂ entering the atmosphere.

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Carnival Freedom's next two sailings canceled after funnel fire, second within 2 years

A fire in the exhaust funnel of the Carnival Freedom this weekend has disrupted a cruise for the second time in less than two years — and will mean that the Florida-based ship's next two sailings are canceled.

Damage to the funnel will require the cancellation of Carnival's next two cruises out of Port Canaveral, which were scheduled to depart Monday and Friday.

Thousands of passengers with scheduled cruises will be affected by the canceled cruises during a busy spring break period for Carnival and other cruise lines.

Carnival initially had said it expected no changes in its upcoming cruises, but on Sunday afternoon said the cancellations would be required.

"Regrettably, the damage is more than we first thought, and will require an immediate repair to stabilize the funnel, resulting in the cancellation of the March 25 and March 29 cruises from Port Canaveral," according to a statement issued by Matt Lupoli, Carnival Cruise Line's senior manager of public relations. "The funnel has been stabilized for the ship’s return to Port Canaveral overnight to disembark guests, and then it will go to the Freeport shipyard on Monday afternoon to begin the required repairs."

Carnival said it made the decision after "our technical team completed a thorough assessment" during the ship’s visit Sunday to Freeport in the Bahamas.

In the statement, Carnival said: "We sincerely regret the impact to our embarking guests, as we know they have been looking forward to their spring break vacation. We are providing all guests on both canceled cruises a full refund and a 100% future cruise credit, so they can come back and enjoy a future cruise with us. We also greatly appreciate the terrific guests who are currently sailing with us, for their outstanding cooperation and support."

Carnival said the fire was confined to the funnel area. The cruise line said there are no reports of injuries to passengers. Two firefighting crew members were treated for minor smoke inhalation.

Carnival said that, at about 3:15 p.m. Saturday, the Carnival Freedom reported a fire on the port side of the ship’s exhaust funnel. The ship was 20 miles off Eleuthera Island, Bahamas, heading to Freeport after a canceled call to the Carnival private island of Princess Cay due to adverse weather.

"The ship’s fire response team was quickly activated, and the ship’s captain also turned the vessel towards the heavy rain in the area to maximize the efforts to put out the flames," an earlier Carnival statement said. "Eyewitnesses reported the possibility of a lightning strike, and that is being investigated, but cannot yet be confirmed."

By 5:20 p.m. Saturday, the fire was extinguished. 

How safe are cruise stops? Travel advisories are only one marker for destinations

Carnival said the ship's captain made multiple announcements to passengers and crew, and advised all but essential safety personnel to stay away from balconies and all open decks. 

The port-side portion of the funnel had fallen onto Deck 10, and the firefighting response put out any flames. 

The U.S. Coast Guard has been notified of the fire, and Carnival activated its incident response team to support the ship’s crew. 

Carnival said there were no other operational issues with the ship’s systems, and the ship, which was on a four-night cruise, was visiting Freeport on Sunday.

A cruise ship funnel generally serves as a smokestack to lift emissions above the deck, thus away from passengers and crew.

On Saturday evening, "Carnival Freedom guests enjoyed the Elegant Night dinner as planned, and, with the exception of the open decks, all areas of the ship are fully functioning," Carnival said in its statement. 

The Carnival Freedom next voyage was scheduled to depart from Port Canaveral on Monday afternoon on a five-night Eastern Caribbean cruise. That cruise had port-of-call stops scheduled at Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic and at Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

But that sailing and a Friday sailing both have been canceled.

In May 2022 , a fire broke out in the funnel area of the Carnival Freedom while it was docked in Grand Turk. Carnival then canceled three scheduled sailings of the Carnival Freedom out of Port Canaveral because of the need to repair the ship's fire damage at a shipyard in Grand Bahama.

More recently, in October 2023, the Carnival Freedom debuted a new iconic winged funnel after returning from a 16-day dry-dock refurbishment in Cadiz, Spain.

Dave Berman is business editor at  FLORIDA TODAY.  Contact Berman at  [email protected] , on X at  @bydaveberman  and on Facebook at  www.facebook.com/dave.berman.54

FIRST ALERT: light snow this morning becomes heavier this afternoon, travel disruptions likely

Today starts with a few more light snow showers, but the snow will pretty quickly increase in intensity. Especially this afternoon, snowfall rates could be around 1-2″ per hour, making travel very difficult very quickly! Meanwhile, east winds also start to increase rapidly, 15-20 miles per hour, with gusts up to 35 miles per hour possible. This will add to the misery, drastically reducing visibility. Winter Storm Warnings and Winter Weather Advisories are in effect for much of the area starting Sunday morning. With that, a First Alert Weather Day has been issued from noon Sunday through noon Monday.

Snow will be coming down hard at times, and with temperatures around freezing, this will be a wet and heavy snow. Combined with the strong winds, this could lead to some power outages as well, as the snow will put a large burden on tree limbs and power lines. Wet snow easily stick to objects, and of course with breezy conditions, that increases the risk of bringing down some power lines and tree limbs. During the day Sunday, warm air will move in from the south, and this will gradually change the snow over to rain, mainly during the overnight into Monday. Monday then is looking like a rainy day in Eau Claire as the area of low pressure is still nearby. Some thunderstorms are even possible.

However, this transition to rain will take longer the farther north and west you live. That’s why the highest snowfall totals can be expected over northwestern Wisconsin and into central Minnesota, with some double-digit totals possible. Less snow will fall the further south and east you go. The Monday morning commute should see mostly rain across the area, but the rain can be heavy and with probably still quite a bit of snow on the ground, it will likely still be slow-going for your drive to work.

We slowly dry out on Tuesday, and with winds shifting to the northwest, temperatures will be dropping throughout the day. That could bring us a few more light snow showers, but the main activity of this storm is now exiting our region. Wednesday and Thursday are looking dry with increasing sunshine, before another potential storm system arrives Friday and Saturday. Stay tuned to WEAU on air, online and in the First Alert Weather app for all the details!

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