Faster Than Light Travel: The Only Way To Meaningfully Explore The Cosmos

in #space7 years ago

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Imagine trying to explore every single nook and cranny of our planet on foot. You would require several lifetimes to complete that adventure. Now imagine trying to do the same with the universe.

Such a journey would be a gazillion times more difficult even if you built the fastest spaceship ever known to mankind. The fact of the matter is, the universe is so unimaginably vast that nothing, not even light itself could explore all of it.

Another fact is that the laws of physics do not allow anything to travel faster than light which travels at the speed of 299,792,458 m/s, which is in itself, unimaginably fast but compared to the distances involved in cosmos, it is painfully slow. So, even if you somehow designed a spaceship that could travel at the speed of light, you would take 8 years just to make a round trip of the nearest star to the sun, Alpha Centauri.

So, you might ask yourself, “Does that mean we will never be able to explore the cosmos? Not even a tiny portion of it?” For an explorative species like ours, that would be a very big bummer. But wait, physics may have the answer after all.

Wormholes: The Shortcuts of the Universe

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You may have heard about wormholes or seen one in sci-fi movies before, but they are not just limited to fiction. Even though we have yet to observe one, wormholes are backed by math, which means there is a big possibility that they exist.

If you think that isn’t enough evidence, remember that we observed gravitational waves only recently while Einstein had predicted them a century ago based on the math.

So how will wormholes enable us to roam the universe to our heart’s content? Well, wormholes act as a direct shortcut between any two points of the universe no matter how apart these are. I won’t get into the technicality of how it works.

So, in theory, you could enter a wormhole just above the Earth, and come out of the other end which could be millions of light years away, all in an instant! Though it is not teleportation, it would sure feel like it!

That would allow us to visit distant star systems in our spaceships without having to actually travel long distances at all. Just imagine what that will do to our knowledge of the universe. It’ll definitely expand like wildfire with many space explorers all around the galaxy and perhaps even other galaxies!

That would surely make for a Star Trek kind of a world where space explorer would be a legit job title! I know I would want to be one. Let’s just hope that the scientists trying to figure out how to make one have a miracle breakthrough real soon.

Warp Drives

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Warp drives are another way that could theoretically allow for faster than light travel and no there are no shortcuts involved in this. The spaceship would actually have to travel the long distances.

So, how would it travel at faster than light speeds without breaking any laws of physics, you ask? Well, the way a warp drive works is, it contracts the space in front of the ship and expands the space behind it.

Therefore, the ship moves forward as though it was riding the space instead of travelling through it. No laws of physics are broken, because the ship wouldn’t be doing the moving but space would be moving the ship at faster than light speeds and yes, the light speed limit doesn’t apply to space.

Interestingly, a lot of research is being done in this field. Even NASA has been looking into it for quite a while now. In fact they even came up with a concept of a warp drive spaceship which can be seen above.

Just as the wormholes, Einstein’s equations within the general theory of relativity, could allow for such a warp drive. We only need to have several breakthroughs in physics before any such drive may be possible.



Despite these two being just theories for now, it is heartening to know that scientists think that they are quite possible in the future. Some even say that it is not a matter of if but when such technologies will be in our hands and instead of the world, the whole universe could be our oyster!

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What a classic!

Have you ever came across the Kogi, who know of star systems on the opposite of their hemisphere and which can't be seen by the naked eye??? They can even identify them and have categorized some of them giving them descriptors NASA and other agencies have started to find out with the same qualification???

In the last documentary the Kogis themselves asked to be made, they go visit an astrophysicist who gets baffled by that fact. It is a documentary available on NetFlicks and it is called "ALUNA", which refers to the "spirit of water"...

I hope you enjoy! There are ways to visit the cosmos and it has been used for millennia through soul travelling. It takes a bit of training, but we can do it. Some people more easily than others though.

Great article again, thanks for sharing. Namaste :)

No, I haven't heard about Kogi. Need to do some research on them and watch that documentary. Thanks for a wonderful comment :)

Excellent Post, I cannot recall where I read it but the statement was made that there were more stars than grains of sand on all the beaches on our planet! An awful lot of exploring even if one were immortal!

Thank you! Yeah, I have heard this multiple times too and I think it is true. In fact, according to latest reports, scientists now believe that there could be upto a trillion galaxies!!

If a mini warmhole could be in my hand, I would travel each day of my life to a different location on earth, Just zoop in-Zoop out to other part of world, Travel 365 different places, and write a book about living 365 lifes in a year. Then the next year, I would go for planets. That would be a hell of a life. Just waiting for the scientist to develop warm holes /warp drives to design and then a take the technology by a startup company to let normal people use it.

Just remember to use it carefully. You don't want to get stranded in space by accident ;)

Well, when we would we able to use that technology, there would also come an insurance with it, like travelling in an aeroplane. If I come out of being stranded in space alive, I would come out with a lot of money and experience to write about ;-)

haha, interesting. Looks like space insurance will be a thing in the future.

Yeah, and if there is not such thing, I am not travelling anywhere.

Nice to know ;)

Awesome spaceship :*)

Yeah it totally is. The question is, "Will we be alive when it becomes a reality?"

I don't think we will, however if they invest in Bitcoin and they get their funds faster to raise those funds. Money can make any technology leap centuries. :)

Yeah, they should definitely invest in crypto. In just 5 years, their investment will grow A LOT!!

Informative and easy to read post, as always :) thank you!

Thank you so much @natord. Really appreciate it :)

Nice!

Scalar waves can open portal for 4D . In 4D not have speed limit...fast travel !

Oh! I haven't heard of scalar waves. Need to look it up.

I'll write a story about them soon.

Nice. Would love to read it.

I think they need to do it with information first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_communication

It currently takes 19 hours to send a signal to Voyager 1 which is the farthest manmade object from the earth.

I did a post about superluminal communication before (I think) but it is impossible (at least according to our current understanding of physics). I totally agree that it shouldn't take that long to send messages and it WILL become a problem when we actually start exploring space in full swing.

I think, if and when we develop the ability to make a wormhole, we could send messengers through it right on a ship, maybe? That would be such a cool job!

Amazing technology, seem half of UFO form, cool image

Yeah, it looks something like the aliens would design :D

good image.

Can scientist actually be talking about the "doodle holes" that we saw on the ground when were children playing?

haha not really! :P

I think about the size of the universe pretty much every day. Not just the size but how much is going on. It's truly mind boggling. I also remember reading that at our current speeds, it would take one of our fastest space probes like 80k years to get to Alpha Centauri. So we need to get some gravity or solar sails going and find those wormholes you talk about!

Yeah, it is truly something else to get lost in your own imagination about the universe, its vastness and its beauty. Truly magnificent. I just wish that some day, we develop capabilities to be able to witness it all first hand :)

thanks for that upvoted and followed, greetings Lena

Thank you so much for reading :)

It seems to me that man is only an atom, or even less, in the body of the universe. But maybe everything ...

Yeah, on the scale of the universe, even our Earth is millions of times smaller than a speck of dust. Imagine how small we are :)

If it does not brake the laws of physics we will do it.

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Yes, definitely. What nature allows, we will somehow find a way to achieve it.

Hey its so good to see doing so well in here. Nice post brother.

Thank you for reading brother!!

Yeah, I have been posting consistently almost everyday for the last 10 months. Consistency is the key :)

That's great. If I had found about steemit a little earlier maybe I would be at the same place where you are. :)

yeah, I joined in July of last year. Have been posting and engaging with the community ever since. I think it took me 2-3 months to get noticed. Just keep at it and give it your best :)

I joined in January this year. And have been active since then.

Nice to know that. :)

Yeah. Have a nice day :)

Amazing, maybe when we develop this technology we could search exoplanets much more quickly and perhaps in a few hundred years finally answer the question "are we alone in the universe."

Yeah, if this technology is ever created, our exploration of universe will grow exponentially and the answer to that question which has been haunting us for a long time will finally be answered!

Homo sapiens will be extinct long before the species develops warp speed travel......

That's not so optimistic...haha...but yeah, anything is possible.

I don't mean that our species will have vanished, but rather it will have evolved to the extent that we would not recognize them as humans. It will be a future species that has human ancestry . This future species will go to the stars.