how close are we to warp course

Will we ever reach warp speed?

Warp drives are theoretically possible if still far-fetched technology. Two recent papers made headlines in March when researchers claimed to have overcome one of the many challenges that stand between the theory of warp drives and reality.

Is the warp drive scientifically possible?

“None of the physically conceivable warp drives can accelerate to speeds faster than light,” Bobrick says. That is because you would require matter capable of being ejected at speeds faster than light—but no known particles can travel that fast.

How long would it take to get to Alpha Centauri at warp 4?

Star Trek: The Original SeriesWarp factorCalculated speed (c)Travel time from Earth to Alpha Centauri114.33 years28197.69 days32758.57 days46424.71 days8 more rows

How many mph is warp 1?

In the sci-fi universe of "Star Trek," spaceships with warp drives can zoom past the normally impenetrable limit of light speed, or about 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second) in a vacuum.

Can a warp drive escape a black hole?

If Alcubierre warp bubbles are physically possible, which is exceedingly unlikely, and if the equivalence principle is correct, you could definitely escape from a black hole in one, because there's nothing locally special about the event horizon.

Will humans ever be able to travel at the speed of light?

So will it ever be possible for us to travel at light speed? Based on our current understanding of physics and the limits of the natural world, the answer, sadly, is no.

Why is warp 10 Impossible?

Our solution was to redraw the warp curve so that the exponent of the warp factor increases gradually, then sharply as you approach Warp 10. At Warp 10, the exponent (and the speed) would be infinite, so you could never reach this value.

How far is Vulcan from Earth?

The Real Vulcan: This system is some 16 light-years from Earth, which is about 94 trillion miles (151 trillion km) away. Unfortunately, it would take us nearly 81,000 years to reach the *closest* star.

How long would it take to cross the Milky Way at warp 9?

1.1 yearsAt 'Warp' 9, you can travel to the Galactic center in 1.1 years. At Warp 16, you can travel to the current distance of the visible horizon to the universe some 15 billion light years distant, in 212 years. At Warp 25, this takes only 2.4 days, and at Warp 37 ( 0.99999...

How long would it take to travel 70000 light-years at warp 9?

Voyager was about 70,000 light-years away from home, and crew would often use "75 years" as the time it would take to get back home at top speed. This means the Voyager series used the old method of Warp calculation. 70,000/9.9753 is roughly 71 years.

How long would it take to get to Mars at warp 2?

Mars is 200 million miles from Earth at it's farthest, 36 million at it's closest. So at Warp 2 they could arrive at Mars at it's closest from Earth in 24 seconds.

How fast is impulse?

The Star Trek Voyager Technical Manual, page 13, has full impulse listed as ¼ of the speed of light, which is 167,000,000 mph or 74,770 km/s. One quarter impulse for Voyager would be 18,665 km/s. Voyager's one quarter impulse is 10 times faster than that of the shuttle.

How does Alcubierre's warp drive work?

Alcubierre’s warp drive would work by creating a bubble of flat spacetime around the spaceship and curving spacetime around that bubble to reduce distances. The warp drive would require either negative mass – a theorized type of matter – or a ring of negative energy density to work.

What happens when an electron and an antielectron appear near the warp drive?

For example, if an electron and an antielectron appear near the warp drive, one of the particles would get trapped by the mass and this results in an imbalance. This imbalance results in negative energy density. Alcubierre’s warp drive would use this negative energy to create the spacetime bubble.

How does a warp drive create negative energy?

To create negative energy, a warp drive would use a huge amount of mass to create an imbalance between particles and antiparticles. For example, if an electron and an antielectron appear near the warp drive, one of the particles would get trapped by the mass and this results in an imbalance.

What is the theory of spacetime?

Image via AllenMcC/ Wikimedia Commons. Physicists’ current understanding of spacetime comes from Albert Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. General Relativity states that space and time are fused and that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

What is the closest star to Earth?

Image via Les Bossinas/ NASA / Wikimedia Commons. The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.25 light-years away, or about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion km).

Does Star Trek have a warp drive?

In theory, this approach does not contradict the laws of relativity since you are not moving faster than light in the space around you. Alcubierre showed that the warp drive from “Star Trek” was in fact theoretically possible.

How fast is the Parker probe?

The fastest ever spacecraft, the now-in-space Parker Solar Probe will reach a top speed of 450,000 miles (724,000 km) per hour. It would take just 20 seconds to go from Los Angeles to New York City at that speed, but it would take the solar probe about 6,633 years to reach Earth’s nearest neighboring solar system.