Starship Asterisk*

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060124.html

Up, up and away!! Wow past the moon in only 9 hours. That's quite a feat. Nice job NASA. I hope the mission is a great success. Too bad we have to wait so long. It will be Worth it though.

Orin

Here here - To Jupiter in just 13 months is pretty damn amazing too

Amazing to think that all the way to Jupiter is only 1/7th the way to Pluto.

Although this misson is not flying at or nearly to the speed of light. It's not even going a light year distance but, theoritically it should face time dialation and space contraction as per the theory of relativity? are they possible to measure? (Theoritically can be calculated). Are there atomic clocks which can measure them? Is the misson fitted so?

If there is an atomic clock on board then it should experience it - much like the atomic clocks on orbital tests...

It's still a miniscual difference, and it's a very small fraction of c....

Just how would you measure such a difference and wouldn't all objects moving in space be affected in a like manner?
Orin

Yes, all objects moving relative to each other in spacetime would observe slight time dilation effects, but unless they're moving at very high velocities, it'll be pretty much insignificant.

For example, a 'stationary' observer who experiences a certain amount of time, T, watching a fast-moving object go past, will see that object's clock experience a smaller amount of time passing T(1), according to:

T(1) = T * sqrt( 1 - ( v / c )^2 ), where v is the object's velocity, c is the speed of light, and T is the amount of time measured on the observer's clock.

If the object is moving at exactly the speed of light (only possible if the object is a photon), then this goes to zero, meaning the observer sees the object experiencing no time passing whatsoever.

So, for the New Horizon's probe, travelling at 75000km/h relative to us, for every second we experience here on Earth, we would observe it experiencing 0.99999999759 seconds. Which amounts to one whole second of difference in our clocks after approximately thirteen years and two months.

http://www.school-for-champions.com/sci ... tspeed.htm

About light speed travel! As time is different for some objects moving faster than others.
If traveling at the speed of light was like ten min to a year to the traveler; than it wouldn't be necessary to travel faster. Except on a round trip things would change drastically for the traveler.
Orin

New Horizons on course; passes orbit of Mars.
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/06 ... _mars.html
Orin