Speed Of Light - Blog Posts

Three Ways to Travel at (Nearly) the Speed of Light

One hundred years ago, Einstein’s theory of general relativity was supported by the results of a solar eclipse experiment. Even before that, Einstein had developed the theory of special relativity — a way of understanding how light travels through space.

Particles of light — photons — travel through a vacuum at a constant pace of more than 670 million miles per hour.

All across space, from black holes to our near-Earth environment, particles are being accelerated to incredible speeds — some even reaching 99.9% the speed of light! By studying these super fast particles, we can learn more about our galactic neighborhood. 

Here are three ways particles can accelerate:

1) Electromagnetic Fields!

Electromagnetic fields are the same forces that keep magnets on your fridge! The two components — electric and magnetic fields — work together to whisk particles at super fast speeds throughout the universe. In the right conditions, electromagnetic fields can accelerate particles at near-light-speed.

We can harness electric fields to accelerate particles to similar speeds on Earth! Particle accelerators, like the Large Hadron Collider and Fermilab, use pulsed electromagnetic fields to smash together particles and produce collisions with immense amounts of energy. These experiments help scientists understand the Big Bang and how it shaped the universe!

2) Magnetic Explosions!

Magnetic fields are everywhere in space, encircling Earth and spanning the solar system. When these magnetic fields run into each other, they can become tangled. When the tension between the crossed lines becomes too great, the lines explosively snap and realign in a process known as magnetic reconnection. Scientists suspect this is one way that particles — for example, the solar wind, which is the constant stream of charged particles from the Sun — are sped up to super fast speeds.

When magnetic reconnection occurs on the side of Earth facing away from the Sun, the particles can be hurled into Earth’s upper atmosphere where they spark the auroras.

3) Wave-Particle Interactions!

Particles can be accelerated by interactions with electromagnetic waves, called wave-particle interactions. When electromagnetic waves collide, their fields can become compressed. Charged particles bounce back and forth between the waves, like a ball bouncing between two merging walls. These types of interactions are constantly occurring in near-Earth space and are responsible for damaging electronics on spacecraft and satellites in space.

Wave-particle interactions might also be responsible for accelerating some cosmic rays from outside our solar system. After a supernova explosion, a hot, dense shell of compressed gas called a blast wave is ejected away from the stellar core. Wave-particle interactions in these bubbles can launch high-energy cosmic rays at 99.6% the speed of light.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com. 

Wow, “ For a photon, its entire existence is instantaneous. “ , that put things in perspective! 

Ask Ethan #109: How do photons experience time?

“[L]ight takes about 8 minutes to travel from the sun to earth. Light travels at the speed of light. If you do that relativity kicks in. So my question is, how much time passes for the photons traveling? In other words, how much have the photons aged when the reach the earth? Thanks for considering this.”

Travel at any constant speed, at rest, slowly, or near the speed of light, and you’ll experience time passing at the same rate it always does: one second per second. If someone else is moving relative to you, they’ll see your clock run slow (and you’ll see theirs run slow) depending on how quickly you move relative to one another. But what about a photon, which moves at the speed of light? From your point of view, no matter what your motion is, you won’t see time pass for it at all, and it won’t even experience time! For a photon, its entire existence is instantaneous.

Speed Of Light Thoughts

Numb fingertips

Heart of hell

The wind doing flips

Finally

The darkness turning into burning light

I don’t like it with the sun

I need to live on the dark side of the planet

I've got a word stuck in my head and it weighs a ton

It can’t be taken away with any of the elements of the earth

Fire, air, earth, and rain have nothing on me

It’s attached to my life

If you unstick it from me, you'll be handing me over to death

Such strife

I don’t know what it is anymore

Thoughts going at the speed of light

I can't see them

Or catch them

There isn’t a stem

I wish I was sober

I'm lost in the fog

The fog you can't escape

I try to run out of it

Without something to stick to it is as foggy as scotch tape

An agenda wet with water molecules

Lightning thoughts tire the storm

The storm gets lost in my fog; it's thick

How do you plan on finding me, when I don't know where I am?

How are you going to get me out of this brick?

I want to feel my fingertips, have my heart be free, and have the wind die down

I want to hear my thoughts and have the enigma of the ride

-Ghost stars

“The Moon doesn’t care

What out of this life I want to take,

It just passes by through the night.

But Stars tell the truth

Cause Ghosts are wise

Distant friends to sympathise

Looking down on this world

From the skies

For centuries and their advice

Is piercing through me

with its light

That’s already dead

BUT IM ALIVE”

~RED DEN

Excerpt of a longer piece I wrote, but it’s gotta be one of my favourites