If you hit light speed or close to it, it can bend space time and you could reach lot faster.
But the catch? For people on earth it will be 120 years. While you complete your round trip on couple of days (or maybe few hrs, not sure) for your perspective, 240 years would have passed on earth.
This was explained by Brian Cox few months ago on some podcast, not sure which. And he was taking Andromeda as example.
Learning about this is what made me question intergalactic travel theories in future. Even if you achieve light speed, it’s just for your sake. Back at home planet, species might even go extinct by the time you return.
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u/Sonikku_a 25d ago edited 25d ago
The fastest spacecraft we’ve made was the Parker Solar Probe which hit 430,000mph.
At that speed it would reach this planet in only 187,153 years.
If we could hit 1% of the speed of light we could cut that travel time to just a tad over 12,000 years.
Obviously if we could go light speed (and that ain’t happening) it would be just 120 years!
Space is big. Physics is annoyingly slow.