Why do we need all that speed?
Distances on a astronomical scale are extremely huge. So huge that astronomers don't view the universe in meters or kilometers but have made up there own units of length. One astronomical unit (AU) is the average distance to the sun from the earth. Even this distance is too small to make sense out of the universe so there is also light years (ly). One light year is the distance that light travels in one year. |
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Let's say we wanted to take a trip to pluto. Pluto exists on average 39.5 AU's away from the sun. The speed of a shuttle in orbit is faster than a speeding bullet at 7,757 meters per second. 1.496 x 10^11 m (1 AU) * 38.5 AU's (distance from earth to pluto) / [7757 m/sec (speed of shuttle) * 31536000 sec/year] = 23.5 years |
Pluto. Found here. |
That means it would take about 47 years round trip to go to pluto at current speeds. If we want to travel outside our own galaxy to objects that are light years away we are going to need to go a lot faster. So why can't we go faster than light? |
Why Fast? |