Ask ARSE: Can We Warp Hard Into the Deep Unknown?

We have had some very interesting questions lately, but none more so than this original one from a devout ARSE fan.

So without further ado let's: Ask ARSE.

"Hey guys, just wondering how killer it would be to travel to other galaxies in lightspeed or warp speed! If we had invented it by now, where would we be in the universe? Cheers" - Tony

An interesting question Tim.

Lightspeed is not all it's cracked up to be in regards to space exploration, unfortunately. Sure we've seen the warp and light speed on Star Trek and Star Wars respectively, but the math just doesn't add up to the film. 

You see, planetary and space scientist James O'Donoghue of NASA and now JAXA fame has created a visual representation of the speeds used in the fanciful TV and films in real-time. 

It is not what you'd expect. 

A bit of a bubble buster if we do say so ourselves. 

Warp 1, or what is considered the speed of light, is almost stationary over the sun and warp 5 is a trip through the solar system in 1.5 minutes. This is kind of devastating if you were hanging your hat on the fact that lightspeed travel would be feasible in the not too distant future, with 5x lightspeed not even allowing us to travel beyond what we have already discovered with the Hubble. 

Warp 10 transverses the solar system in an incredible 10 seconds and Proxima Centauri, our closest star to our own would still be an 18-hour commute. From one edge of our wonky galactic Milky Way rim to the other, a considerable trip of about 200,000 lightyears, at warp 10 is a depressing 96 years...

The sad thing is that this speed, ten times the speed of light, is thousands of times over anything possible in physics. Your craft would utterly disintegrate in on itself. 

Thanks for the question Tim and keep prodding ARSE with questions as we thrust into the deep unknown...
#Space_Aus