Astronomy 2021A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation, The Visionaries, Time Dilation
1 Jun 2017
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Document Summary
Our current rockets could not take people to other stars. Really haven"t developed enough to know much about space. It would take 115,000 years for pioneer 10 to reach alpha centauri (closest star). It will take a million to get 3. 3 light years away from another star because it was not aimed anywhere particular. Four probes, pioneers 10 and 11 and voyages 1 and 2 are going into stellar space, but not heading anywhere specific. These probes are equipped with messages to the aliens in case they are ever found. Cannot travel faster than the speed of light. (special theory of relativity) even if we can travel this fast, other star systems are still far (8. 8 years for a round trip) Speed of light is the cosmic speed limit. Note: the nearest star system, alpha centauri, is about 4. 4 light-years away.
