Unlike airplanes, spaceship zipping through the void of space aren't slowed by friction from the atmosphere around them. Using rocket propulsion and the gravity of the sun and planets to sling them across, our fastest space probes can reach the speeds of 150,000 miles/h(260,000 km/h). That might sound fast but it's the tiny fraction of speed of light and much to slow to travel beyond the solar system. The first manned flight to mars will take at least 6 months. A modern spaceship would take tens of thousands of year to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to our solar system.
Can a spaceship travel faster than speed of light?
Not according to laws of physics, which treat lightspeed as universal speed limit. Albert Einstein observed even achieving the speed of light would require more energy that exists in the universe.
At lightspeed, how long would it take to travel...
- The moon?1.3 seconds
- The sun?8 minutes,20 seconds
- The Alpha Centauri? It take a little more than four years for the light of Alpha Centauri to reach Earth. In other words, Alpha Centauri is more than 4 light years away(light years is how far light travels in a years).
If it takes so long to reach nearest star system, will we ever get to explore the Galaxy?
Someday, maybe. Researchers at NASA's Johnson space center are looking into ways to beat the universal speed limit by a REAL-WARP-DRIVE . Just like the propulsion system from Star Trek, this engine would shrink space, expanding from behind-to propel crew to places faster than speed of light. Using this drive, a trip to Alpha Centauri would takes a couple of weeks instead of thousands of years. It's only on the drawing board for now, but they mocked up ship named- you guessed it right-Enterprise.
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