How long would it take our current rockets to reach the nearest star?

Question

In normal years please, I don't understand light years lol x

Answer 1

Light years measure distance, not time.

The distance travelled by light in one year is called 1 LY.

Answer 2

the nearest star to us is the Sun which is 93 million miles away

the top speed of the space shuttle is 17,500 miles per hour . it would take 221 days to get there

Answer 3

The nearest star is our Sun, which is 93 million miles away. Rockets travel at about 18,000 miles an hour and at that speed would take more or less 7 months to get there.

If you point a torch towards the sky and then switch it on, in 1 second the light leaving your torch will have travelled 186.000 miles. A "light Year is the distance the beam of light will have travelled in 1 year at 186,000 miles per second. That is 186,000 per second, multiply that by 60 for one minute, multiply that by 60 for an hour, multiply that by 24 for one day, then multiply that by 365 for a year, a "Light Year".

Answer 4

Contrary to popular belief, New Horizons isn't ever going to overtake Voyager I in distance from the Sun. That's because New Horizons didn't pass as close to Jupiter as Voyager I did, and didn't get as much of a gravity boost, so it's not going as fast.  Voyager I is going about 17.374 km/sec away from the Sun.

Proxima Centauri is about 4.22 ± 0.01 ly from Earth.  A light year is about 9.461×10^12 km. So, Proxima Centauri is about 39,925,420,000,000 km. So, if Voyager I were headed there, it would take 2,297,998,158,167 seconds, or about 72,819 years.

I can't wait.

Since increasing the speed by 10% would save 7,000 years, it would make sense to spend a few years developing better technology, like nuclear powered Bussard Ram scoops with particle accelerators, light sails and such. These things don't break any currently understood laws of physics.

Voyager I wasn't designed to get to other stars specifically, so a purpose designed mission would get there sooner, even on a lower budget.  I'd be very surprised if such a mission took even 10,000 years.

Project Orion was designed, but not built. A nuclear bomb powered ship could achieve perhaps 8 percent of the speed of light.  Assuming it could get up to speed quickly, the lower limit would be about 52.75 years.

Answer 5

17,900 years  

The nearest star (other than our sun) is Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years away.  

The following is cut and pasted from link below:  

Using the kinds of propulsion systems we have, and taking advantage of a 'gravitational slingshot' from Jupiter, we could probably get up to 150,000 miles per hour. The Galileo probe managed to get to about 106,000 miles per hour and currently holds the record for the fastest speed ever achieved by an artificial body.

The nearest star is Proxima Centauri at a distance of 4.2 light years. At a speed of 150,000 miles per hour from a passive slingshot maneuver, it would take about 17,900 years to reach this star. At that point, you would then have to figure out some way to loose a lot of your velocity, or you would fly right past this star into the depths of interstellar space.

Answer 6

Light years are a normal year, its just how far light travels in a vacuum in a year.

If you do not understand a light year, then you certainly won't understand the correct answer.

A very long long time, probably many many thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years.

Answer 7

Just to further confuse you a light year is a measure of distance not time

Answer 8

Our current 'rockets' are well short of what's needed .. the answer (for Americans and the West in general) is 'never' (we have lost our nerve - other things, such as 'reducing risk to zero' and 'Saving the environment' take priority now)

However there is a good chance that the Chinese will take over from the USA and decide to go for the stars (despite the risk and ignoring the 'environment').

So I'm going to guess 'about 100 years' (by 2108) .. that's 50 for the Chinese to build mankind's first Orion based star ship (and sort out 'suspended animation' sleep for the crew) and 50 to make the journey...

Answer 9

I don't know but I wouldn't mind catching it myself.  Where is it

leaving from and what time ! !

Answer 10

The nearest star to us (Alpha Proxima) is about 25, 300,000,000,000 miles away - and it would take us thousands of years to reach it with current technology.

Answer 11

The fastest spacecraft we have going right now is New Horizons (with Pioneer 10, 11, and the Voyagers not far behind in speed).  They travel at approximately 50,000 miles per hour.

The nearest star (other than the sun) is 2.35 * 10^13 miles away.  Divide that by 50,000 and you have 470 million hours to get there, or 53,685 years.

.

Answer 12

in other words if we decided as a human race to go to another planet we would need to take on board enough population to enable us to have at least 20000 generations of kids to enablke that dream to happen,