Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest sun-like star

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by gpderetta on Thursday August 10, 2017 @02:12PM (#14982481)

Interestingly, while on earth 50 years will have elapsed, because of time dilation on the ship only about 40 years will have elapsed. It will get exponentially closer to 0 elapsed time as the speed approaches c. At 90% c only about 20 years will have elapsed [1]. Equivalently, as the travelers approach c, the distance to the destination will appear shorter.

[1] disclaimer: I didn't do the math, i just googled the tables.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by Tossrock on Thursday August 10, 2017 @03:30PM (#14983240)

The math is actually quite simple to do yourself, your dilation factor is just 1 / sqrt(1-x^2), where x is a percentage of c from 0 to 1. So at 0c, your factor is 1 (obviously), at .5c it's 1.15, and at .9c it's 2.294.

Divide the elapsed time in the stationary reference frame by the dilation factor and you get values that roughly agree with yours.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by ant6n on Thursday August 10, 2017 @03:41PM (#14983351)

Of course at 0.9c, the non dilated travel time is 22 years, brought down to less than 10 years due to time dilation.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Four Earth-sized planets detected orbiting the nearest su... by gpderetta on Thursday August 10, 2017 @07:41PM (#14985394)

oh, yes of course, going faster you would obviously arrive earlier even in earth frame of reference :)

[ Parent | on HN ]