• Question: does it take you longer to travel in space?

    Asked by Flo to Scott, Ry, Maggie, Daniel on 15 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Scott Melville

      Scott Melville answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      If anything you travel a lot faster in space because there’s no friction to slow you down! 🙂 The problem with space is just that it’s really big – that’s why it takes a long time to get anywhere (even if you’re going pretty fast).
      A funny thing happens to ‘time’ if you get too close to large masses though – like near a black hole, a few seconds for you will feel like a few weeks for your friends back here on Earth!

    • Photo: Ry Cutter

      Ry Cutter answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      It’s like Scott says,
      You can go faster is space! You may even experience something called time dilation, this means people moving slower than you experience time slower than you (they’ll look like their moving in slow motion)! People moving faster than you experience time faster (they’ll look sped up).
      We use this effect to correct GPS signals.
      Scott mentioned how large gravity slows down time even more.
      If you were to go into a black hole, from the outside you’d look frozen in time!
      Fantastic Question,
      Ryan 😀

    • Photo: Maggie Lieu

      Maggie Lieu answered on 15 Nov 2017:

      It should take a shorter time to travel in space because there is no air resistance to slow us down

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