I takes a human walking 225 million years to travel a light year(6T miles). If you are in a high speed space ship it takes about 37k years.
We may be able to develop faster than light speed travel by warping space at some time in future.
The Theories of Relativity have showed us that this universe has a speed limit. This limitation is determined by the speed of light traveling at an unbelievable speed of 299,792km/sec. Well, if you translate it to hours, it comes to a 1.1billion kmph.
Keeping aside these dizzying calculations, if we could travel at the speed of light, we could move around the green planet 7.5 times every second. It’s unimaginably fast and this comparison serves in a variety of calculations.
The universe is vast; it has no end. So, if you have to calculate everything in kilometers, you would have to work with some incredibly large numbers. That’s why cosmic distances are always measured in terms of a light-year.
In other words, it is the measurement of the speed at which light travels in a year. For instance, the Milky Way, one of the most talked-about galaxy is 100,000 light-years away from the earth. And Andromeda, our closest cosmic neighbor is at a distance of around 2.5 million light-years.
This means that we would take about 2.5 million years to reach the galaxy that we call our closest neighbor.
How long do humans take to travel light year?
The concept of time where it forms the primary backdrop against which everything takes place is challenged by Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. It shows that time and space get converted in such a manner that it is dependent on the observer’s motion as well. This is the reason moving objects tend to shrink.
Keeping this concept in mind when we think of anything that travels across a plane, here humans traveling a light-year would take 37,200 human years to travel one light year! That’s a pretty long duration and you can only reach up to the center of our own galaxy only.
How fast can we go?
The present record of human speed is held equally by the three astronauts flying the Apollo 10 Mission of NASA. In 1969, as they were returning back from their journey to the Moon, their spacecraft hit a speed of 39,879 kmph. According to Jim Bray of Lockheed Martin, even a few years back it was unimaginable that human beings can travel at a pace of almost 40,000kmph.
With eco-friendly energy-induced cars becoming equipped with faster race-circuit, we can expect to break the records shortly. Even then, we are no way close to the speed of light or even the speed that could allow us to explore space completely.
How long to walk a light year?
If it has ever crossed your mind that you want to walk a light year, then you are a bit late. To finish it off now, you should have started your walk from the time the first dinosaur appeared on our planet’s surface. Let’s make things easier for you. Supposedly your walking pace is moderate and you can cross about a mile in say, 20 minutes. Hiking at this speed would take you 225 million years to cover the distance of a light year. Also, make sure that you don’t stop for eating or using the washroom.
On an average, a healthy adult individual burns around d 80 calories for each mile covered. This implies that you will require a copious number of PowerBars, say two trillion, for the optimum energy supply. Your current pair of running shoes, considering it’s absolutely new, can serve you for 500 miles at the most. Thus, you will require about 12 billion pairs of such runners to support your walking!
How long to travel to Alpha Centauri?
Alpha Centauri, our nearest star, is situated at 4.37 light years away from the earth and it would take us 18,000 years to reach there. Even though it’s impossible to even think of reaching out to our closest star neighbor, NASA is still striving to realize this dream. They are planning to bring up an effective nuclear propulsion system that may theoretically make it possible for human beings to reach the stars.
It has always been one of the top priorities of NASA to set its foot on Alpha Centauri. It was in 1987 that the organization suggested pushing out a manless probe for orbiting around the Alpha Centauri B within the next century. It was also given the name Project Longshot but was left unattended in 1988.
How far is a light year?
Light year refers to the distance that the light traverses in a single year. It is used for measuring distance and not time and measures up to 9.7 million km. As it is already pointed out that when we are calculating in celestial space, measuring distances in kilometers or miles would be very confusing.
The way you calculate the distance from your home to the workplace in terms of say, half an hour drive, the same way astronomers and space researchers use light years to refer to the distance or any other happening in the cosmic world.
Can you go faster than light?
Only if you have no idea about how time, space, and light years function, you will ask this question. You can travel faster than light, but only in the pages of science fiction!
If humans were capable of going faster than light, they would explore beyond what’s in the entire solar system. On the basis of scientific research and advancements in physics, traveling faster than light is an example of physical impossibility only, particularly when we have mass.
If you still can’t figure out why it’s impossible, then it’s worth mentioning that even a miniature proton will also need infinite energy supplies for reaching the speed of light. And it’s still beyond our understanding of what infinite energy is.
After reading about the overwhelming speed and distance that the planets and other celestial bodies cover in record timespan. It takes longer than a human lifetime to travel a light year.
