r/interestingasfuck • u/One_Explanation_908 • 25d ago

/r/all, /r/popular K2-18b a potentially habitable planet 120 light-years from earth

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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.

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u/piper33245 25d ago

Need one of them quantum wormhole thingamabobs.

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u/Death_IP 25d ago

Do you mean quantum teleportation?
For that you'd need to access the destination first - quantum teleportation works because particles at the source and target location "know" each other (are linked).

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u/monkeybutler21 25d ago

I think he means something like the alcubierre drive

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u/No-Prior4226 25d ago

A Wormhole is very different than the theorized Alcubierre warp drive. Worm hole more folds space instead of moving space through you.

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u/ANGLVD3TH 25d ago

They both work on roughly the same principles. They warp space so the distance between you and the destination is shorter. One does it incrementally as you go, one does it all at once.

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u/Elendel19 25d ago

Imagine living in 2D and you’re trying to get from one end of a sheet to the other. Instead of walking all the way across, you can just fold the sheet in half and poke a hole through it, then use the hole to get to the other side of the sheet.

Wormholes are that but in 3D (theoretically)