Cosmic Journeys - Interstellar Flight

Alpha Centauri a trio of stars 4.37 light-years from Earth they are the sun's nearest neighbors there are now hints of something else in this system a planet if it's there it orbits too close to its parent star to bear life as we know it if we find other planets there especially one resembling her some say that will ignite an effort to build a vehicle powerful and speedy enough to get us there interstellar flight is part of a long-standing quest to expand our horizons and go where we've never been what imperatives will define our first interstellar mission when it finally launches and finally arrives a future journey beyond our solar system has been compared to the great human migrations of the past one of the greatest spanned the uncertain reaches of the Pacific Ocean it began 8,000 years ago with the arrival of people on Taiwan off the coast of China by around the Year 1200 ad there are Polynesian descendants arrived at their furthest point Easter Island in a thousand small journeys moving from island to island a seafaring culture emerged what are the Tongass the Fiji's and Easter islands of the future astronomers are now searching in the near regions of our galaxy they have identified 3841 planetary candidates nearly 1,100 have been confirmed the vast majority are Neptune or jupiter-sized planets that orbit close to their parent star by one recent estimate based on data from the Kepler space telescope our galaxy has nine billion stars with planets roughly the size of Earth with conditions that could support life the nearest possibility is a three star system called Alpha Centauri at 4.37 light-years away it's the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus Proxima Centauri a red dwarf is the closest of the trio but so far no planets have been detected Alpha Centauri a is slightly larger and more luminous than our own Sun while V is slightly smaller a team of European astronomers working at the European Southern Observatory in Chile recently detected a subtle wobbling in the light of B it could be a sign of tugging from a planet's gravity if a planet is there it literally hugs its parent star with an orbit that's even closer than mercury is to our Sun it's probably molten with surface temperatures in excess of a thousand degrees centigrade are there other planets far enough out for liquid water to flow that prospect is the subject of intrigue in science and science fiction Alpha Centauri is the fictional location of Polyphemus a giant gas planet and its moon Pandora from the movie Avatar the year is 2150 for Earth has been ruined by environmental catastrophe greedy prospectors board the hybrid fusion antimatter spaceship venture star they descend on an innocent hunter-gatherer people called the Navi could such a place exists this close to home one problem with Alpha Centauri is that the orbits of a and B bring the stars as close as Saturn is to our Sun this means that planets further out could have been pulled away and flung out into space for this reason Alpha Centauri was not a high priority for planet hunters that is until similar examples turned up such as Kepler 16 16b is a planet that orbits two stars which in turn orbit each other or Glaser six six seven a triple star system 22 light years from Earth six six seven see is a red dwarf one-third the mass of our Sun with six planets in its fold three of them small enough to be called super Earth's orbit at a distance that could allow liquid water to flow on their surface that opens the possibility that planets may have survived in the Alpha Centauri system for now that question is on hold the orbits of Alpha Centauri a and B have brought them to close for astronomers to resolve the signal of a planet when they move apart again astronomers will have new tools at their disposal including the James Webb Space Telescope now set for launch in 2018 from a position a million miles away from Earth it will deploy a Sun shield the size of a tennis court and a mirror over 21 feet wide my service will use this telescope with its infrared light detectors to discern the chemical composition of planetary atmospheres here are Alpha Centauri a and B has seen by the Cassini spacecraft just above the rings of Saturn assuming it's worth the trip you'd have to travel a distance 30,000 times the orbit of Saturn to reach them put another way if Earth to Saturn is a meter then Earth to Alpha Centauri is New York to Chicago to put the journey into perspective consider Voyager 2 now on its way out into the galaxy after a series of gravitational assists from Jupiter and Saturn the spacecraft is traveling at about 62,000 kilometers per hour if it were headed in the right direction it would need another 73,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri the dream of traveling to other solar systems was forged by rocketeers a century ago a Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky inspired generations of space visionaries with sophisticated ideas about multistage launch vehicles he imagined the construction of space stations in Earth orbit and eventually permanent space colonies someday he predicted will evolve into a whole new species omo cosmic us since then rocket Ray's greatest advances have centered on ways of containing explosive propellants and methods of maintaining stable flight at high speeds the problem with chemical rockets is that they are just not very efficient to reach the speed needed to escape Earth's gravity 25,000 kilometers per hour the space shuttle carried 15 times its weight in fuel a massive study showed that to send a shuttle sized craft to Alpha Centauri in 900 years would take an unbelievable amount of fuel 10 to the 137th kilograms worth that's more than the entire visible universe there are several promising advanced propulsion concepts on the drawing board including fuel efficient plasma engines which accelerate a spacecraft gradually to high speeds it won't get us to Alpha Centauri in anything close to a human lifespan to go that far and that fast a pre Apollo project called Orion called for a series of controlled nuclear explosions to propel a spacecraft to high speeds the project died of it concerns about the impact of nuclear explosions on the environment back in the 1970s a group of scientists unveiled designs for Daedalus this giant fusion powered craft would have had to carry 50,000 pounds of fuel the plan was to accelerate to 12% the speed of light and reach a nearby star in 50 years other plans have included ramjets with vast magnetic fields that scoop up a fuel supply of hydrogen ions or solar sails powered by the solar wind and by lasers stationed along the way then there's the rocket of choice in science fiction powered by the most potent fuel in nature antimatter in James Cameron's Avatar a fusion antimatter hybrid engine powers a 1500 meter long spaceship it makes the journey to Alpha Centauri in just six years antimatter consists of electrons and protons but with their electrical charges reversed whenever it comes into contact with normal matter - to annihilate each other in a ferocious blast of energy only trace amounts can be found in the universe today for example in the high-energy environments of black holes it's so powerful that a mere ten thousandth of a gram is about all it would take to send a spacecraft to Jupiter current designs for an antimatter drive use magnetic fields to isolate and channel the fuel the idea is to merge a stream of protons with a stream of its antimatter opposite antiprotons a magnetic field pinches or compresses the combined streams into a narrow beam annihilation then produces an ultra high-energy laser that shoots out the back of the craft that causes a recoil effect that pushes on the magnetic field produced by the beam and propels the craft forward antimatter can be produced on Earth in giant physics labs like the Large Hadron Collider here scientists accelerate atoms to nearly the speed of light and blast them together to release their fundamental constituents the yield is so small that the cost of producing just a grams worth of antimatter would be upwards of 100 trillion dollars and this stuff is so volatile that storing more than a few atoms at a time remains a significant challenge if specialized facilities were built the cost could drop by one estimate to as low as 10 billion dollars per gram one idea would be to station an antimatter Factory in space powered by the one billion watts per kilometer delivered by the Sun another is to harvest antimatter already produced in space the idea is that cosmic rays interacting with interstellar particles send about a kilogram of antimatter flying into the solar system every second some of it has been shown to circulate in radiation belts that surround the earth theoretically it could be captured by a large magnetic scoop that sits in a high orbit above the planet short of traveling to another solar system there may be good reasons to develop antimatter propulsion an interim mission would speed beyond the orbit of total sending back close-up images of objects in the Kuiper belt a longer distance probe could reveal new details about the Oort cloud a vast realm of comets that envelops the solar system once out there it could sample interstellar particles or deploy an interstellar telescope to make it all the way to Alpha Centauri within 50 years an antimatter probe would have to accelerate to around 10% the speed of light over 100 million kilometers per hour my velocity has its perils at such speeds even dust has enough mass to destroy the craft a magnetic shield would be needed to clear the way if it could be done there may be other destinations to consider at least 22 stars within 12 light years of Earth any way you look at it the first interstellar voyage will be a quantum leap for Humanity the urge to reach out to distant horizons to climb the highest peak is a vital part of human nature but explorers of old set off not just because it was there at times it was greed under fear and despair that propelled them from their homelands and allowed them to endure their long journeys what imperatives will send future generations into space to the physicist Stephen Hawking it's a question of survival I don't think the human race he said will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space there are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet we can't foresee the impact of wars social upheaval or the course of human civilization in coming centuries but an early context for the mission may be emerging now on one hand the technological advances that might make such a mission possible could revolutionize many other aspects of life on this planet the ever-increasing number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on the computer microchip has become a metaphor for the advance of technology some observers forecast a steep rise even an acceleration in the pace of invention and basic research and for whole new solutions to the problems of energy food production health and more in addition despite the daily drumbeat of violence and war we are actually living in one of the most peaceful eras in human history over the centuries the number of people killed in battle has steadily dropped as civilizations evolved with two world wars the 20th century was pretty bad but the 19th was even worse in terms of deaths per 100,000 from war genocide murder and other factors the world is relatively calm on the other hand major periods of scarcity and suffering may though the last century saw the world's population grow from less than two billion to nearly seven billion today it may reach nine to ten billion by the Year 2040 according to a recent UN report the world will have to produce 70% more food by the year 2050 and at least that much more energy to sustain its population simple clean water in some regions is already extremely scarce now throw in environmental impacts like rising sea levels or the spread of deserts linked to a gradually warming climate no matter how you look at it our world is changing in ways that will impact the way we live and relate to each other will technological advancements allow us to halt the degradation of our natural environments and increase the carrying capacity of our planet will be find ways to mitigate the effects of war natural catastrophes or political upheavals the technology needed to launch a first interstellar mission is certainly decades away the actual journey could take centuries the mission will likely be designed to relay basic information on a world whose light we have studied intensively from afar back home it will no doubt spur reflection on who and what we have become as a people as a planet as our cosmic emissary makes its way across the void we on earth will continue to struggle in our pursuits of happiness prosperity and mere survival when it arrives we'll scan the data for evidence of a world like our own one that may Harbor life will we come to explore and expand our knowledge or to begin a long journey out into the uncertain reaches of the galaxy

Channel: SpaceRip

Views: 1,555,647

Rating: 4.8021407 out of 5

Keywords: Aliens, einstein, pandora, cosmic journeys, Exoplanet (Celestial Object Category), interstellar flight, Shuttle, technological possibilities, Physics (Field Of Study), Alpha Centauri (Celestial Object), space, rocket, kepler, Interstellar Travel (Literature Subject), sun, Flying, Universe, avatar, speed of light, anti-matter, planets, hawking, spacerip, science, interstellar travel, Moon, nasa, earth, cosmos, orbit, space travel, space flight, black hole, black holes, the universe

Id: dQdRrhDMXnY

Length: 25min 41sec (1541 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 29 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/Lemon-Haze]

Excellent doc, not too long and some nice CGI. Makes me think I was born a few generations too early...

[u/yourbrokenoven]

Very nice.

[u/Stuffe]

Ha, i have been watching the Cosmic Journey playlist every time I can't sleep for years now :) Not that they are boring, it's just that the soothing and slow pace voice makes my eyelids really heavy :)

[u/Obnoxiouscat1]

The idea that star systems that host planets just like ours in the universe excites me.

The milky way galaxy alone hosts 400 billion stars, and the milky way galaxy is just one of billions. There could be planets out there with technological civilizations on a planet the same size of Jupiter that orbit ancient stars, where these civilisations skip across their galaxies like stepping stones. I personally believe civilisations arise all the time throughout the universe, and its just a matter of luck how many are in each galaxy and how close they are to each other.

Think about the geopolitical structure of Earth, now think about this same structure existing in whole galaxies! Where alien civilisations have a beurocratic form of governance throughout a whole galaxy, with things like parking fees for orbiting a planet, the amount of un-colonised star systems an intelligent civilisation can colonise, the amount of stars that can be used up for energy, the amount of empty space used for space stations, intergalactic highways , all these things could certainly be possible, to just think we are alone is bollox.

I like to think the age of a galaxy depends on how lively it is as well. Earth could be fairly new and fresh for a young galaxy such as the milky way. There could be galaxies out there in the universe where its screaming with life, and your planet just happens to be part of an intergalactic super empire where one dominate alien civilisation dominate's and takes over billions and billions of other Earth like planets.

The incomprehensible size of the universe leaves the mind's imagination to run wild in the greatest sense possible. I mean even our whole entire universe is most likely one of billions of other universes. If our whole entire universe was in one hot dense state the size of a pea, and then exploded creating everything we see and know today, doesn't that seem like all the energy, space , time, matter that would of been sucked into the middle of a super massive black hole from some other higher Universe? From yet another Higher unseen dimension?

If black holes, or supermassive black holes suck in space,time,energy,light,matter then all of these things have to go somewhere? We can't see into it but it definitely creates the fragments of the universe we see today.

[u/hippomille]

anyone else here read nemesis by asimov, great insight into what it might be like to collonize a world without the brightness of earths yellow sun

[u/Texas_Rangers]

Prospect of Interstellar travel is fascinating.

Interesting read for those interested...http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/FTL.html

[u/D3cker]

That youtube channel has some excellent stuff.

[u/Fumbles_McAllthumbs]

Wow, 5 minutes in and it feels like a paid for ad for Avatar.