If I could travel at the speed of light

[glenc (Glen)]

If I could travel at the speed of light (9,461,000,000,000 km per year) it would take me:

0.13 seconds to travel once around the Equator
1.3 seconds to reach the Moon
8.3 minutes to reach the nearest star, the Sun
4 hours to reach Neptune, the Sun’s outermost planet
4.3 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, apart from the Sun
370 years to reach the bright open star cluster Pleiades (M45)
710 years to reach the Helix planetary nebula, a dying star (NGC7293)
1,350 years to reach the Orion Nebula (M42)
15,800 years to reach the globular star cluster Omega Centauri (NGC5139)
25,900 years to reach the black hole in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy (Sgr A*)
100,000 years to cross our Milky Way galaxy
157,000 years to reach the small local galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)
2,540,000 years to reach the large local galaxy in Andromeda (M31)
2,400 million years to reach the bright magnitude 12.9 quasar 3C 273

All of these are visible in binoculars or a small telescope except the black hole, but don't look at the Sun.

[renormalised (Carl)]

If I could travel at the speed of light (9,461,000,000,000 km per year) it would take me:

11 minutes to run into a piece of debris in the Asteroid Belt and then everything else would be moot

[adman (Adam)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

11 minutes to run into a piece of debris in the Asteroid Belt and then everything else would be moot

...and at that speed it wouldn't be pretty!

[sally1jack (Phil)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

If I could travel at the speed of light (9,461,000,000,000 km per year) it would take me:

11 minutes to run into a piece of debris in the Asteroid Belt and then everything else would be moot

And the last thing to go through your mind would be ??? it's an oldie i know

[leon]

Very interesting stuff, thanks.

Leon

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by sally1jack

And the last thing to go through your mind would be ??? it's an oldie i know

The rocket nozzle at the back of the ship

[asimov (John)]

LS seems pretty damned slow when you look at it this way hey! I'm not greedy & only want to get out of the atmosphere so's I can do some decent imaging..!

[scagman (John)]

If I could travel at the speed of light (9,461,000,000,000 km per year)

I'd still be late everywhere

[Steffen]

Travelling at the speed of light can really ruin your weight-loss program, too.

Cheers
Steffen.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Steffen

Travelling at the speed of light can really ruin your weight-loss program, too.

Cheers
Steffen.

Only in the eye of the beholder....you'd still weigh the same as usual according to yourself

[Steffen]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Only in the eye of the beholder....you'd still weight the same as usual according to yourself

You are too kind

Cheers
Steffen.

[Ric]

There a some massive distances in the Universe even at light speed.

Where's Scotty, we need warp 9

[sheeny (Al)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Only in the eye of the beholder....you'd still weight the same as usual according to yourself

Ah... well if you going to be like that then...

The times Glen quoted are only for a "stationary" observer. The actual time that Glen would experience is zero!



Al.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by scagman

If I could travel at the speed of light (9,461,000,000,000 km per year)

I'd still be late everywhere

And they'd find a way to put interstellar speed cameras.

[Archy (George)]

Originally Posted by glenc

If I could travel at the speed of light (9,461,000,000,000 km per year) it would take me:

0.13 seconds to travel once around the Equator
1.3 seconds to reach the Moon
8.3 minutes to reach the nearest star, the Sun
4 hours to reach Neptune, the Sun’s outermost planet
4.3 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, apart from the Sun
370 years to reach the bright open star cluster Pleiades (M45)
710 years to reach the Helix planetary nebula, a dying star (NGC7293)
1,350 years to reach the Orion Nebula (M42)
15,800 years to reach the globular star cluster Omega Centauri (NGC5139)
25,900 years to reach the black hole in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy (Sgr A*)
100,000 years to cross our Milky Way galaxy
157,000 years to reach the small local galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)
2,540,000 years to reach the large local galaxy in Andromeda (M31)
2,400 million years to reach the bright magnitude 12.9 quasar 3C 273

All of these are visible in binoculars or a small telescope except the black hole, but don't look at the Sun.

If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you no time at all, after reaching that speed, to travel anywhere in the universe.

[qld]

Originally Posted by Archy

If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you no time at all, after reaching that speed, to travel anywhere in the universe.

red shift makes you travel faster

[Paduan (Brett)]

At that speed would my headlights work? Being space it is pretty dark!

[thunderchildobs]

[QUOTE=glenc;753338]If I could travel at the speed of light (9,461,000,000,000 km per year) it would take me:

2,400 million years to reach the bright magnitude 12.9 quasar 3C 273

QUOTE]

With the quasar moving away from us, 2,400 million years would leave you a little bit short . (I'll let others do the math).

[glenc (Glen)]

Thankyou for all the corrections! This is supposed to be for beginners!
Yes, strictly speaking I should say the light takes that much time to reach us from each of these objects.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Once you start to get out around cosmological distances, the distances quoted start to become problematical due to time dilation, redshift and spacetime curvature. Several different ways of measuring distance are employed.... light travel time, light travel distance, comoving/proper distance, cosmological proper distance, angular size distance and luminosity distance. They all give different answers as to how far away an object is, with luminosity distances giving the largest of all the values that can be ascertained.