How long would it take for me to get to Neptune if I was travelling close to the speed of light?
Jan 23
Soda Tears asked:
Say 95% the speed of light. Neptune is a minimum of 4.3 billion km away from Earth.
Say 95% the speed of light. Neptune is a minimum of 4.3 billion km away from Earth.
So if I was travelling at 285 000 000 m/s, I would only need 13 seconds to reach Neptune, am I right?
oops I got the units mixed up
so its 4 hours 11 minutes 27 seconds ?
Tour guide
No. You would need to find out how fast you can accelerate before the human body is crushed.
But if you started at 285 000 km/s then you could go past Neptune in about 13 seconds sure
Assuming Neptune was at its closest location to Earth (4.3 billion km, which is 4.3 trillion meters), it would be:
4.3 trillion m / (299 792 458 m/s * 0.95)
Which equals 15098.2 seconds, or 251.6 minutes, or 4.194 hours.
Your last answer is correct
Yes (approximately), depends on the earth neptune distance you’re using and the decimals you’re keeping throughout the calculations.
the minimum distance between earth and neptune is: 4305.9×10^9 m
(http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/neptunefact.html)
the velocity, as you wrote, is: 285 000 000 m/s
the time required to get to neptune from the earth at that speed would be:
(4305.9×10^9 m) / (285 000 000 m/s) = 15108.4 s
15108.4 s = 4 hours 11 minutes 48.408 seconds
It’s 4 hours 11 minutes to an *outside observer*.
However, to you, the distance between you and Neptune will be reduced by a factor of Sqrt(1-.95^2) = 0.3122
So you measure the distance to Neptune as being 0.3122*4.3 billion km = 1.34 billion.
Therefore, in your frame of reference, the time it takes is 1.34 billion km / (.95 * 300000 km/s) = 4701 seconds = 1.30 hours, or 1 hour and 18 minutes.