*** The Official Astronomy & Universe Thread ***

[Freakbro]

No, no, no. It is a limitation of the universe no object can travel through space faster than the speed of light.

Not quite, our understanding is that nothing (with mass) can accelerate from below FTL speeds to above them, its a barrier not a maximum.

Theoretical particles, eg Tachyons, would already exist beyond that barrier and thus could travel FTL. But like with wormholes, warp fields etc they require negative energy, another theoretical property we've not detected (yet) but has a growing cohort of advocates.

Now it may be possible to warp space and time around an object to create a bubble that will move faster than light i.e. "warp drive" but thats really science fiction at this point the amount of energy required is non achievable at this point.

Yea, warp bubbles exploit loopholes in relativity, in that the object isn't travelling FTL, spacetime itself (the bubble) is. They also require negative energy to work

I was randomly watching some Sabine videos last night and her objection to warp drive wasn't the negative energy requirement (she's an advocate) but the amount of 'normal' energy required to warp spacetime.

To create a 1km bubble, that would comfortably fit the Enterprise, would require a mass 2/3 of a solar mass and that amount of mass in that size would be a black hole anyway.

 

[Rroff]

Kind of cool looking east tonight - Mars and Jupiter quite clear with Aldebaran in a direct line to the right of Jupiter and Betelgeuse below (though at least where I am quite indistinct).

EDIT: Also the odd shooting star as well as Starlink train :s

 

[SpellowHouse]

No, no, no. It is a limitation of the universe no object can travel through space faster than the speed of light. Entanglement is not travelling through anything its spontaneous action at a dstance. Its true it may let information travel faster than light but thats not an object. Zero mass objects i.e. photons travel at the speed of light but anything with mass will travel less than. Now it may be possible to warp space and time around an object to create a bubble that will move faster than light i.e. "warp drive" but thats really science fiction at this point the amount of energy required is non achievable at this point.

There is nothing in Einstein's laws that states that the speed of light can not be broken. It is a barrier, not a limit. We do not know of a way to exceed it, but that does not mean that there is not a way.

(I know that entanglement is not exceeding the speed of light and I am not talking about warping space either).

Look...