How Long Would It Take To Travel To The Nearest Star?

universetoday.com ^ | 26 Jan , 2016 by | Matt Williams

[mountainlion]

To travel the speed of light you would need a power source with output of a star. You need to travel at a speed that would allow you to send out a “radar” beam to locate an object, reflect off the object and return in time for the electronics of the radar to calculate a safe path and give the ship time to maneuver around the object(s).

[Jolla]

Yes that is what they meant, as often is the case here many replied only to the headline and not the article, clearly they mention outside the solar system but many (that indicate our sun) did not read the article.

[ModelBreaker]

It accelerates at a very low rate but steady—gradually increasing orbits are the result. But it uses relatively very little fuel to do so. That’s the big deal. Steady but low acceleration for a long time results in very high velocity. And you don’t have to accelerate all that fuel.

[MortMan]

And yet the headline is so inadequate.

[catbertz]

Thanks everyone who answered my question. These concepts fascinate me!

[GingisK]

Come on, you can’t tell me you don’t know what they mean.

Those who pursue science should strive for perfection.

[Blue Highway]

Seems like a hot air balloon (if it were possible) could get to the moon quicker than a year...

[Blue Highway]

cool program I just installed it. One quick question. How do you fly around. Do you need a mouse to move? I figured I could use my touchpad on my laptop but I can rotate and thats it.

[zeugma]

Here's a quick list of helps....

You use your arrow keys to move. I find using the 10-key on the keyboard works best, because you can use them to rotate your field of view as well.

a = increase your speed

z = to decrease speed.

If you are in the solar system, you can use the number keys above the letters to target individual planets.

1=mercury, 2=venus, 3=earth, etc.

h = selct SOL as target.

c = center target in view

a right-click on a planet will show satellites and other stuff

g = take you to whatever is targeted

if you want to immediately go to saturn, press 6g. you'll zip right there.

function keys control velocity in addition to using "a" and "b".

f1 = stop

f2 = 1 km/sec

f3= 1000 km/sec

f4= light speed (i.e., c)

f5= 10c

f6 = 1 astronomical unit/sec i.e., 1 AU/sec

f7=1 light year/sec

So, if you want to go to saturn the "slow" way, limiting yourself to the speed of light, press 6, c, f4 (6 targets saturn, c makes the targeted object the center of your screen, and f4 accelerates you to the speed of light) You'll have about an hour and a half to wait until you get there.

The 'h' key is important because it will help you get home if you go extra-solar. Finding earth from another galaxy is pretty much impossible without the 'h' key to help you orient. it will also help you because if you click your mouse on a star to see which one it is, celestia will 'forget' that you're still in the solar system so the keys to quickly locate planets won't work. press 'h', and using the numbers to select planets will work again.

There's lots of other stuff you can do, like go to 'celestia motherload' and download/install new,higher quality graphics files for planets. You can also download real and fictional starships. the models of starships are really impressive.

I have documented a couple of fun 'trips' on my website. Go to http://www.zeugmaweb.net/trips/ and select the Spacedock link to see some really cool stuff.

If you need other help, drop me a line. Celestia is the coolest program I've ever played with.

 

 

 

[GingisK]

Nope.