Interstellar Journey: Into the Stars

Since the dawn of civilization, men have looked up at the sky and their minds have never stopped to wonder if it will ever be possible for humanity to travel across the Universal space. We have traveled across the unknown seas to bust the myth about the Earth being flat. We have dived down to the deepest ocean trenches to find previously unimagined watery life forms. We have developed supersonic jets to make the already less time-consuming air-travel even faster. We have set foot on the Moon as well. But alas the Lunar landing has till now been our Final Frontier. And although previously thought to be an impossible mission, more and more research in this segment is making the idea of space travel sound possible with each passing day. So let's dig more into this concept which is also known as Interstellar travel.

Interstellar spacecraft- reimagined



What Is Interstellar Travel?

Interstellar space is often called the space between the stars, but more specifically, it’s the region between our Sun’s heliosphere and the astrospheres of other stars.

Our heliosphere is a vast bubble of plasma — a gas of charged particles — that spews out of the Sun. This outflow is known as the solar wind. The bubble surrounds the Sun and stretches beyond the planets. Both Voyager spacecraft had to travel more than 11 billion miles (17 billion kilometers) from the Sun in order to cross the edge of the heliosphere. This bubble is moving through interstellar space as the Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy. As our heliosphere plows through space, it creates a bow wave, like the wave formed by the bow of a ship.

Spacecrafts can also enter into spatial wormholes to travel two or more distant places in space and time. The presence of wormholes significantly solves the problem of interstellar travel.


Wormholes in space

Wormholes are tunnels in curved space and time, connecting two distant places, through which travel is possible. Wormholes, if they exist, would allow you to travel from Point A to some extremely distant Point B without bothering with all the arduous traveling from Point A to Point B. They're a shortcut. A cheat-code to the universe. See a star millions of light-years away? You could reach it in just a few minutes if you had a wormhole linking you to that star. No wonder it's a staple of science fiction movies.

But wormholes aren't just a figment of our imagination designed to cut out all the boring parts of interstellar travel(which is most of it). They are born from the mathematics of Einstein's general theory of relativity, our modern understanding of how gravity works. In that language matter and energy bend and warp the fabric of space-time. In response the bending and warping of space-time inform matter how to move.

Wormholes are like tunnels connecting two distant places


So when it comes to wormholes, we should simply ask ourselves: Is it possible to bend space and time in such a contorted way that it folds over on itself, forming a short distance tunnel between two otherwise distant points in space?

Are we ready for Interstellar travel

Warpdrive across wormholes will help us discover unknown corners of space.


Since warp drive is still just a fantasy, getting to interstellar space takes a really long time at present. Voyager 1, the first spacecraft to make it, was about 122 Astronomical Units (Earth is one Astronomical Uni or AU from the Sun). That’s about 11 billion miles (18 billion kilometers) from the Sun when it exited the heliosphere and entered interstellar space. The spacecraft launched from Florida in 1977 and entered interstellar space in 2012. That’s a 35-year trip. Of course, Voyager 1 didn’t make a beeline for interstellar space — it took the scenic route and toured Jupiter and Saturn first. Voyager 2, traveling slower than Voyager 1, also toured Uranus and Neptune, and took 41 years to reach interstellar space.

That was my take on Interstellar travel. Do comment in case you have additional information which I missed to mention here.

That's it for now. Stay Healthy. Stay Safe.

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