dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (08/07/85)
What would it really look like to be traveling inside a starship? We'll tell you -- after this. August 7 Star Travel When humans someday marshall the resources to begin traveling at high speed between the stars, they'll see some amazing views out the windows of their starships. Suppose you were inside a space vehicle that could travel at some significant fraction of the speed of light. You might expect to see stars moving very swiftly past your window. But in fact that's not what you'd see at all. At speeds approaching the speed of light, strange physical effects would come into play -- effects predicted seventy years ago by Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity. You'd see the stars begin to cluster in the direction dead ahead of your starship -- and in the direction directly behind you. Not that the stars would change their positions relative to each other or your starship. What would change is their apparent distance from your starship's aiming point -- the point right in front of you. The faster you traveled -- ever nearer to the elusive speed of light -- the more you'd notice this forward and backward clustering of the stars. As you got really close to light speed, the entire image of the universe would crowd into a point directly ahead of your ship -- with perhaps a faint spot dead astern. The point in front would be brighter than any star you'd ever seen -- maybe a tenth as bright as the sun as seen from Earth -- a brilliant pinpoint containing the entire universe. Other than that, from the windows of your starship, you'd see only utter blackness. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin
seshadri@t12tst.UUCP (Raghavan Seshadri) (08/22/85)
> At speeds approaching the speed of light, strange physical effects > would come into play -- effects predicted seventy years ago by Albert > Einstein's special theory of relativity. You'd see the stars begin to > cluster in the direction dead ahead of your starship -- and in the > direction directly behind you. > The faster you traveled -- ever nearer to the elusive speed of light -- > the more you'd notice this forward and backward clustering of the > stars. As you got really close to light speed, the entire image of the > universe would crowd into a point directly ahead of your ship -- with > perhaps a faint spot dead astern. The point in front would be brighter > than any star you'd ever seen -- maybe a tenth as bright as the sun as > seen from Earth -- a brilliant pinpoint containing the entire > universe. Other than that, from the windows of your starship, you'd > see only utter blackness Does someone have a simple explanation for this. -- Raghu Seshadri