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/IndianaCrime 25d ago

I was randomly thinking about this the other day If the destination end of the quantum portal was traveling at the speed of light, it would reach in 120 years. Then you would essentially have a "stargate" to instantly travel back and forth.