ammount of time it would take to travel to Alpho Proxima

stevieweevie | 13:31 Thu 16th Sep 2010 | Science

21 Answers

Alpho Proxima is our nearest star, given an imaginary craft with a generous speed of 40.000mph, how long would it take to travel that distance, 4.22 light years, a light year being,186.000mph per second.....? I'm thinking about 3700 ish years.....anyone?

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New Judge

I make it 24,753,237,120,000 (24.7 million million) miles.

At 40,000mph this would take 618,830,928 or 70,643 years.

But I may have made a mistake somewhere!

jno

it'd be a terrible thing to have to come back and start again, NJ.

squarebear

Or if you thought you had forgotten to turn the gas off :-)

jno

incidentally, a light year is a measure of distance, not time. If something's a light year away, it would take you a year to get there travelling at the speed of light.

mike11111

I was always taught that the Sun was our nearest star.

jake-the-peg

If we're being pedantic mph per second is an acceleration

Talking of being pedantic we don't know what the acceleration is to get up to that speed and to slow down to it once you've arrived.

This is trivial in the scale of things but systems like ion propulsion units are getting into the ballpark of the speeds you are talking about but are very slow in accelerting.

For example Dawn was given an extra 5,500 mph by it's ion unit but it took a year to do it.

15 gallons of fuel to do it too!

http://www.nasa.gov/m...s/dawn-20070913f.html

jno

apparently Proxima Centauri, the nearest star in the Alpha Centauri group, is about 4.3 light years away from our sun (which is the nearest star to us) - that's travelling at the speed of light. Travelling at 40000mph it's as New Judge said, 70000+ years.

ABerrant

Stars move.

Proxima Centauri has a radial velocity toward the Sun of 21.7 km/s (48,500 mph) and will make its closest approach to the Sun, coming within 3.11 light years, in approximately 26,700 years.

To travel 3.11 ly in 26,700 years requires a craft to travel at 78,000 mph. If you can't attain that speed you will not reach Proxima Centauri before it starts moving away.

In 31,000 years the closest star will be Ross248, with its closest approach of 3.02 ly in 36,000 years.

In about 40,000 years AC+79 3888 will be the closest star for about the next 10,000 years.

jake-the-peg

If we're talking fast moving stars check out Barnards star

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnard%27s_Star

That's motoring!

It was also the target of a theorhetical probe - project Daeldalus - I think they were looking at a 50 year flight time you might find it interesting

mike11111

Oh Jeez! stevieweevie, you've started something here. I know, let's ask Molly!

vascop

I agree with New Judge it would be 186,000 x 3,600 x 4.22/40,000 years
After cancelling this comes down to 186 x 90 x 4.22 years=70,643 years.
You were out by a factor of about 20 Stevie!

jno

If you're talking fast moving stars, check out Michael Cera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cera

New Judge

A quick way to check it:

Light travels at (186,000 x 3,600) = 669,600,000mph.

This is (669,600,000/40,000) = 16,740 times as fast as the spacecraft.

16,740 x 4.22 = 70,643.

(For the pedants I know light travels slightly faster than 186,000mph, but I think it will do for this calculation).

ABerrant

In 70,643 years Proxima Centauri will be accelerating away. Its position will be greater than 5.5 light years from the Sun and increasing by around 60,000 mph.

Thus the craft will be 1.3 ly short of its target and can only watch it recede into the distance.