Table of Contents
Will we ever get close to light speed?
We can never reach the speed of light. Or, more accurately, we can never reach the speed of light in a vacuum. That is, the ultimate cosmic speed limit, of 299,792,458 m/s is unattainable for massive particles, and simultaneously is the speed that all massless particles must travel at.
How much energy would you need to go the speed of light?
The faster an object travels, the more massive it becomes. As an accelerating object gains mass and thus becomes heavier, it takes more and more energy to increase its speed. It would take an infinite amount of energy to make an object reach the speed of light.
Is it possible to travel at the speed of light?
The idea of travelling at the speed of light is an attractive one for sci-fi writers. The speed of light is an incredible 299,792,458 meters per second. At that speed, you could circle Earth more than seven times in one second, and humans would finally be able to explore outside our solar system.
How fast are particles accelerated in space?
Yet all across space, from black holes to our near-Earth environment, particles are, in fact, being accelerated to incredible speeds, some even reaching 99.9\% the speed of light. One of NASA’s jobs is to better understand how these particles are accelerated.
What is the speed of light in meters per second?
The speed of light is an incredible 299,792,458 meters per second. At that speed, you could circle Earth more than seven times in one second, and humans would finally be able to explore outside our solar system.
How do we accelerate things to the speed of light?
On Earth, electric fields are often specifically harnessed on smaller scales to speed up particles in laboratories. Particle accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider and Fermilab, use pulsed electromagnetic fields to accelerate charged particles up to 99.99999896\% the speed of light.