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According to the special theory of relativity, c is the upper limit for the speed at which conventional matter or energy (and thus any signal carrying information) can travel through space. [2] [3] [4] All forms of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, travel at the speed of light. For many practical purposes, light and other ...
If the near-light-speed space craft is interacting with matter that is moving slowly in the planetary reference frame, this will cause drag which will bleed off a portion of the engine's acceleration. A second big issue facing ships using constant acceleration for interstellar travel is colliding with matter and radiation while en route.
A Bussard ramjet, one of many possible methods that could serve to propel spacecraft. Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft between star systems.Due to the vast distances between the Solar System and nearby stars, interstellar travel is not practicable with current propulsion technologies.
Faster-than-light (superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light in vacuum (c). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass (i.e., photons) may travel at the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster.
The Alcubierre drive ([alkuˈβjere]) is a speculative warp drive idea according to which a spacecraft could achieve apparent faster-than-light travel by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, under the assumption that a configurable energy-density field lower than that of vacuum (that is, negative mass) could be created.
There is no known way to create the space-distorting wave this concept needs to work, but the metrics of the equations comply with relativity and the limit of light speed. [ 9 ] A wormhole is a hypothetical tunnel through space-time that would allow instantaneous intergalactic travel to the most distant galaxies even billions of light years away.
The range of such variances in ordinary life, where v ≪ c, even considering space travel, are not great enough to produce easily detectable time dilation effects and such vanishingly small effects can be safely ignored for most purposes. As an approximate threshold, time dilation may become important when an object approaches speeds on the ...
Relativistic rocket means any spacecraft that travels close enough to light speed for relativistic effects to become significant. The meaning of "significant" is a matter of context, but often a threshold velocity of 30% to 50% of the speed of light (0.3c to 0.5c) is used.