The Galaxy is Huge

Alex Brentnall

Alex Brentnall
I know it's late (at least it is for me) but I just want to take a minute to express how unfathomably huge the galaxy is. I had some fun just now with numbers.

This thread on fuel and supercruising between systems got me working out how far we could supercruise with a ship laden with fuel tanks and all modules except the essentials turned off. I had a vision of being 0m from Sag A* yet still in the Sol system. Sadly I am very much mistaken, it's very much impossible with the ships as fuel hungry as they are.

For my Anaconda it's about 87Ly. Not too shabby but that takes 16 days. Depending on efficiency the cutter could maybe stretch to around 200ly assuming it has a 1T/hr fuel use. 35 days flight.
Some ships can Neutron Star boost that 35 days flight in 30 seconds.

To get to Sag A* in supercruise from Sol it would take 109,455 hours... Or 4560 days... Or 12 years... Now imagine Beagle Point. Well, 28 years in supercruise. Oh and thats not even a return ticket!!


Now you've got that in your head just remember we are travelling 2001 times the speed of light to get those flight times. IRL our fastest probe is travelling about 0.024% of the speed of light (Juno Probe) and the next major step in speed is still being designed (Solar probe plus) which should get about 0.067% of the speed of light. Even the faster probe puts the 130,000Ly return trip to Beagle point at a flight time of just under 2 million years travel.

Perspective is a wonderful thing. G'night all :)
 
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Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Ju6vglf.jpg
 

Bounder

Bounder
It may surprise you to know that at a constant rate of acceleration of 1 G (ie. in what ED players tragically call "normal space"), you could travel to the edge of the observable cosmos (13.7 billion LY) and back again in around 30 years. Yes, you read that correctly - the round trip would be possible within a human lifetime, thanks to relativistic time compression.


Of course, for that same reason, Earth and the entire Sol system will have long since disappeared - well, Sol might still be around as a black dwarf, but it wouldn't be anywhere near 'here' anymore, and indistinguishable from all the other surrounding black dwarves, so good luck finding it.. But if two travelers made the same trip in opposite directions at least you'd have someone to exchange stories with when you got 'back'.

Personally i think i'd rather just have a fortnight on the Costa Brava. Maybe take FFED3D on me laptop. "Supercruise" makes me wanna stick my fist thru my monitor..
 

krylite

krylite
Good point about perspective. It seems ED borrowed warp speed from star trek and called it supercruise which I was totally fine with after getting used to the change from FFE's normal space thrusting timeslide and AU to ls. 2001c I would estimate about warp 4.5 which fits in general with the trek stories including st: voyager. I hope someday, they allow the max supercruise to be 5000c ~ warp 6.7 to make the 300k+ ls or 600+ AU intrasystem trips more bearable.
 
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FoxTwo

FoxTwo
krylite said:
Good point about perspective. It seems ED borrowed warp speed from star trek and called it supercruise which I was totally fine with after getting used to the change from FFE's normal space thrusting timeslide and AU to ls. 2001c I would estimate about warp 4.5 which fits in general with the trek stories including st: voyager. I hope someday, they allow the max supercruise to be 5000c ~ warp 6.7 to make the 300k+ ls or 600+ AU intrasystem trips more bearable.
Click to expand...

Even with Star Trek's warp capabilities, it'd take them 1 year to travel 1,000 LY. Voyager says so - 75,000 LY from home, will take them 75 years to reach home.

So I don't see how they could reach Orion (1,300 LY from Sol) unless they travel 1 odd years at max warp, with 24th Century warp drives, to see Orion women :D
 

Commander Biscuit

Commander Biscuit
Bounder said:
It may surprise you to know that at a constant rate of acceleration of 1 G (ie. in what ED players tragically call "normal space"), you could travel to the edge of the observable cosmos (13.7 billion LY) and back again in around 30 years. Yes, you read that correctly - the round trip would be possible within a human lifetime, thanks to relativistic time compression.


Of course, for that same reason, Earth and the entire Sol system will have long since disappeared - well, Sol might still be around as a black dwarf, but it wouldn't be anywhere near 'here' anymore, and indistinguishable from all the other surrounding black dwarves, so good luck finding it.. But if two travelers made the same trip in opposite directions at least you'd have someone to exchange stories with when you got 'back'.
Click to expand...

Mind blown.
 

Belthize

Belthize
Bounder said:
It may surprise you to know that at a constant rate of acceleration of 1 G (ie. in what ED players tragically call "normal space"), you could travel to the edge of the observable cosmos (13.7 billion LY) and back again in around 30 years. Yes, you read that correctly - the round trip would be possible within a human lifetime, thanks to relativistic time compression.
Click to expand...

The point is valid but pretty sure the numbers aren't. Accelerating at 1G will get you to the center of our galaxy in about 20 years with about 27K years elapsed on Earth. Getting to 13B LY from Earth will take a bit longer.
 
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Sonof Hibachi

Sonof Hibachi
But I WANT an X-Wing. NOW Daddy, I want one NOW!

Meh, space is big, we are small, thank god that Star Wars kept me young and fascinated by this stuff.

Come back to us Patrick Moore, the new guy is too pretty!
 
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ratchet5000

R
Bounder said:
It may surprise you to know that at a constant rate of acceleration of 1 G (ie. in what ED players tragically call "normal space"), you could travel to the edge of the observable cosmos (13.7 billion LY) and back again in around 30 years. Yes, you read that correctly - the round trip would be possible within a human lifetime, thanks to relativistic time compression.


Of course, for that same reason, Earth and the entire Sol system will have long since disappeared - well, Sol might still be around as a black dwarf, but it wouldn't be anywhere near 'here' anymore, and indistinguishable from all the other surrounding black dwarves, so good luck finding it.. But if two travelers made the same trip in opposite directions at least you'd have someone to exchange stories with when you got 'back'.

Personally i think i'd rather just have a fortnight on the Costa Brava. Maybe take FFED3D on me laptop. "Supercruise" makes me wanna stick my fist thru my monitor..
Click to expand...

So much scientifically wrong with this post.

1. Eh, no, there's a universal constant called the speed of light "c" that can't be exceeded. You would need literally infinite energy to get to it, and you wouldn't be able to keep "accelerating" at 1 G past it.

To get time dilation to the tune of speeding up 13.7 billion years (relative to the perspective of where you left - there is no absolute time) into a matter of 30 years, you can calculate how fast you would need to go with the time dilation equation of general relativity. The Lorentz Factor is 13.7 billion/30 years = 456667.

By plugging that into the equation and solving for velocity:456667 = 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2),

You get that to travel the breadth of the observable universe in 30 years (relative to your spaceship), you need to be traveling at 0.999999999997602 times the speed of light, 0.999999999997602c. This would take literally an earth shattering amount of energy, as in you would need to turn the mass of entire planets, stars into energy for you to attain that velocity.

2. The Observable universe is much larger in diameter than 13.7 billion light years, due to the stretching of space via dark energy. The diameter is more like 93 billion LY, so a trip to the edge and back would be this far, though this discounts the stretching that will occur in the billions of years your trip took from the perspective of most of the rest of the universe.

3. Also, 13.7 billion years is long after the sun has died, yes, but however, not only do some existing stars that have much less mass still be here (some red dwarfs can last a trillion years), new stars will have been formed. So, no, our galaxy will not have become completely black dwarfs, even factoring in a 93 billion year long trip with the perspective of the Milky Way, most smaller red dwarfs wouldn't even be a tenth of the way through their life.
 
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Sonof Hibachi

Sonof Hibachi
ratchet5000 said:
So much scientifically wrong with this post.

Eh, no, there's a universal constant called the speed of light "c" that can't be exceeded. You would need literally infinite energy to get to it, and you wouldn't be able to keep "accelerating" at 1 G past it.

To get time dilation to the tune of speeding up 13.7 billion years (relative to the perspective of where you left - there is no absolute time) into a matter of 30 years, you can calculate how fast you would need to go with the time dilation equation of general relativity. The Lorentz Factor is 13.7 billion/30 years = 456667.

By plugging that into the equation and solving for velocity:456667 = 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2),

You get that to travel the breadth of the observable universe in 30 years (relative to your spaceship), you need to be traveling at 0.999999999997602 times the speed of light, 0.999999999997602c. This would take literally an earth shattering amount of energy, as in you would need to turn the mass of entire planets, stars into energy for you to attain that velocity.

Also, 13.7 billion years is long after the sun has died, yes, but however, not only do some existing stars that have much less mass (some red dwarfs can last a trillion years), new stars will have been formed. So, no, our galaxy will not have become completely black dwarfs.
Click to expand...

So I can haz X-Wing?
 

Lanceor

Lanceor
Bounder said:
It may surprise you to know that at a constant rate of acceleration of 1 G (ie. in what ED players tragically call "normal space"), you could travel to the edge of the observable cosmos (13.7 billion LY) and back again in around 30 years.
Click to expand...

ratchet5000 said:
So much scientifically wrong with this post.
Click to expand...

Just for fun, let's make a few false assumptions and see if the maths works out.

  1. Newtonian physics only - no special relativity effects so you can keep accelerating forever.
  2. Universe isn't expanding so that point at 13.7 Billion Light years stays put.
  3. You accelerate halfway there at 1G, face the other way to decelerate to a stop at the edge of the observable universe. You do the same for the journey back.

So to calculate the first leg of the journey to the halfway point, we can use the high school equation:

s=ut+½at2

s = 13.7/2 billion LY = 299,792,458 m/s * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60s * 1,000,000,000 / 2 = 64761646445092800000000000 metres
u = 0
a = 9.8 m/s2
t = ?

64761646445092800000000000 = ½ * 9.8 * t2
t = 3635472808289.8 seconds = 115280 years to get halfway there. Multiply by four for the entire round trip.

Therefore, using Newtonian physics only and accelerating at 1G all the way, a journey of 13.7 billion light years and back would take 461120 years to complete.

Incidentally, since v = u + at...

v = 0 + 9.8 * 3635472808289.8 = 78865128698219.4 m/s = 263065.8c

You would reach a maximum speed of 263065.8 times the speed of light during the journey.

Nope, the maths doesn't hold at all. Bounder, whomever you got that info from, don't trust them to do your physics homework for you.
 
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