Within the next decade scientists believe they may find planets with atmospheres capable of sustaining life as “close” as 63 light years away.\u00a0 So just exactly how far is a light year?\u00a0 Pretty damn far.\u00a0 Here’s the math:<\/p>\n
5,000 years ago the Myans (and Egyptians) determined the earth completes one orbit around the sun (1 year) in 365 days 5 hrs. 48 min. and 46 seconds.
\n365x24x60x60=31536000
\n5x60x60 = 18000
\n48×60 = 2880
\n46 = 46
\n_____________<\/p>\n
That’s 31,556,926 seconds in one Julian calendar year.<\/p>\n
Light travels 186,000 miles per second.\u00a0 So an interstellar body one light year away is about 5,869,588,236,000 miles away. <\/strong>That’s five trillion, eight hundred sixty-nine billion, five hundred eighty-eight million, two hundred thirty-six thousand.\u00a0 Give or take a city block or two. The fastest speed that can be reached by a space shuttle is 17,500 miles per hour.\u00a0 At this speed<\/strong> it would take slightly over 38,263 earth years to travel one light year into space<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Or if someone wants to make the trip in six earth years we will need a ship that travels 111,600,000 miles per hour.\u00a0 Consider that nuclear fission occurs at about 7% of the speed of light that’s much faster than our greatest source of power will ever achieve.\u00a0 Of course this is all based on perspective because traveling in a space craft at these speeds would slow time compared to a stationary object on earth.\u00a0 You know, that pesky relativity formula Einstein discovered.<\/p>\n While science fiction is cool, it’s just that….fiction.\u00a0 Man will never travel 63 light years from earth in our current form.\u00a0 All the more reason digital and electronic storage technologies will continue to progress as a part of human evolution.\u00a0 Once the human psyche can be “digitized”, as in dumped on to a hard drive, we will not only be immortal but we may be able to travel in forms that could one day take us to these planets capable of “sustaining life”.\u00a0 So in all probability the mere act of searching for such biologically hospitable planets or moons is pointless in terms of travel.\u00a0 By the time we achieve a way to get there we will not even need a environment capable of sustaining life in biological form.\u00a0 However such environments could sustain other life forms….. which have very little probability of ever meeting us.<\/p>\n So if there is other intelligent life out there it can’t get to us unless it (they) know how to fold space and time.\u00a0 As depicted in the movie Dune they would need to be able to “travel throughout the universe without moving”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Within the next decade scientists believe they may find planets with atmospheres capable of sustaining life as “close” as 63 light years away.\u00a0 So just exactly how far is a light year?\u00a0 Pretty damn far.\u00a0 Here’s the math: 5,000 years ago the Myans (and Egyptians) determined the earth completes one orbit around the sun (1 … Continue reading How far is a light year?<\/span>
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