Interstellar Travel

L5 - Pandalaoshi
 Choose…
1- A trip to the Moon.
Pros: It has less dangers as the Moon is very near.
Cons: The trip costs 500k dollars and it’s only 5 days.

2- Being a participant in Elon Musk’s journey to Mars in 2050 and live there.
Pros: You will be one of the first residents on Mars (Martian).
Cons: You will have to stay there for at least 5 years, and it might be boring.

3- Going on a fully funded interstellar journey.

Pros: You will see different planets, star systems and so many space wonders.
Cons: Very dangerous and it will take more than a decade.
 General questions

01 02 03
What does What do you know Do you think we have the
interstellar travel about space objects technology to travel to
mean? beyond our solar other star systems?
system?

04 05 06
Is interstellar travel Does interstellar You can describe the
exciting for you? travel have any pros topic of the section
and cons for here
humanity’s future?
 Definition
Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft from one star system, solitary star, or planetary system to another.
Interstellar travel is expected to prove much more difficult than interplanetary spaceflight due to the vast difference in the
scale of the involved distances. Whereas the distance between any two planets in the Solar System is less than 30
astronomical units (AU), stars are typically separated by hundreds of thousands of AU, causing these distances to typically
be expressed instead in light-years.
 Vocabulary that you need to know

● Interstellar
● Exoplanet
● Gravity
● Extraterrestrial
● Astronomical Unit (AU)
● Microgravity
● Light Year
● Cosmonaut
Space is huge and the distances between objects
are unbelievable.
Let’s have a look
 The nearest star system

Proxima Centauri is the nearest star to our sun and it is 4.2 light years
away.
The brightest star that we see in the sky

Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. You can see it wherever you go
but it is 8.5 light years away from Earth.
One of the largest stars visible to the naked eye

Betelgeuse is about 700 times the size of the Sun. We can see it clearly
in the sky but it is 700 light years away from Earth.
One of the nearest Earth-like exoplanets

Kepler-22b is an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the

Sun-like star Kepler-22. It is located about 640 light-years from Earth.
 Watch, listen and explain

1- What does the segment of the video talk about?

2- Are there solutions to the problem that the video is

talking about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzZGPCyrpSU

0:00 - 1:01
 Possible way
to do
interstellar
travel
Can you brainstorm some ideas of how we can
travel between stars?
Current rockets/spaceship

Highest achieved speed: 25,000 mph

Estimated time to Proxima Centauri: 120,000 years

What do you think of this travel method?

Is it possible to make the trip?

Discuss its advantages and disadvantages.

 Lightsail

Expected speed: 20% the speed of light

Time to Proxima Centauri: 20 years

What do you think of this travel method?

Is it possible to make the trip?

Discuss its advantages and disadvantages.

 Wormhole

A wormhole (theoretically) is like a tunnel between two distant points

in our universe that cuts the travel time from one point to the other.

What do you think of this travel method?

Is it possible to make the trip?

Discuss its advantages and disadvantages.

To be continued….