Hundreds of years ago, human civilization finally entered the road of technological development after tens of thousands of years of hard work. With the help of science and technology, mankind soon realized the dream of flying to the sky, stepping out of the earth and beginning to understand the universe.
Only when we have truly stepped out of the earth can we know how vast the universe is and how small the earth is. In the earth age, we can travel all over the world and explore every corner of the earth without the advantage of speed. If we don’t have all kinds of fast vehicles made in the age of technology, then we will not have the ability to travel the world quickly.
In the same way, we want to explore the universe and the starry sky. Naturally, we also need a faster speed, and this speed is far beyond our imagination. Of course, the road has to be taken step by step, and we also need to go step by step in the speed of exploring the universe. With the continuous advancement of human technology, human spacecraft will become faster and faster in the future.
We all know that the speed of an aircraft in the universe and the speed on the earth are completely two concepts. Supersonic flight on the earth is already a very fast speed, but in the universe, our speed is constantly approaching the speed of light. And as the speed of spacecraft gets faster and faster, many people may think of such a question, that is, will it be destroyed by cosmic debris when sailing in the universe?
You know, when we are driving cars and other vehicles on the earth, we may collide with various objects accidentally, so traffic accidents also happen every day. The faster the speed, once it is hit by other things, the greater the destructive power will be. If an aircraft is sailing at high altitude, it may cause a navigation accident if it is hit by a bird.
Then in the universe, will such an impact event happen? We must know that the speed of spacecraft is not comparable to that of airplanes. If we achieve sub-light speed in the future, the speed will be incredible. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, the faster the object, the greater the energy produced. If the speed of a bullet is infinitely close to the speed of light, the energy produced may even destroy a planet.
Satellites in Earth orbit are also very fast. Once space debris hits these satellites, the outcome is satellite destruction. The spacecraft is also afraid of any external impacts during its voyage, even a very small piece of debris can easily destroy the spacecraft during ultra-fast interstellar voyages.
Therefore, in the interstellar voyage in the universe, any debris impact may be devastating to the spacecraft. If so, isn’t it very dangerous for spacecraft to navigate the interstellar space for future cosmic exploration? In fact, this worry is completely unnecessary, because the probability of a spacecraft being hit by cosmic debris is very small. How small is it? It may be tens of thousands of times lower than your probability of winning the first prize in a lottery.
Maybe many people often look at some starry sky pictures on the Internet, knowing that there are countless celestial bodies in the universe, and they think that the distance between matter is relatively close. But in fact, the universe is very empty. Let’s take the solar system as an example. The solar system has several celestial bodies, debris and other dense areas, namely the asteroid belt, the Kuiper belt, and the Oort Nebula.
In these three places, matter, celestial bodies, debris, etc. are relatively dense. Perhaps many people see the Kuiper Belt surrounding the inner galaxies, the number of small celestial bodies in them is too large to count, and they think that these small celestial bodies are relatively close. In fact, the average distance of celestial bodies in the Kuiper Belt is more than tens of millions of kilometers. The number of comets in the Oort Nebula may reach more than one trillion, but they are farther apart.
In our opinion, the Kuiper Belt with such a dense distribution of celestial bodies has a distance of more than tens of millions of kilometers between celestial bodies. The celestial bodies in other regions of the solar system are even more distant. Therefore, the Voyager spacecraft passed through the Kuiper Belt without any collisions. You know, when scientists launched the Voyager, they basically didn’t know much about the Kuiper belt.
The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are able to move towards the outside of the solar system without encountering any celestial bodies or celestial fragments. The main reason is that the space is open. Even if they move freely in one direction, the probability of being hit by cosmic debris It is also very small.
When we leave the solar system and enter the interstellar space, the cosmic space is even more empty. The distance between stars is more than a few light-years. In the interstellar space, the number of particles is very rare, not to mention some cosmic debris. Therefore, when a spacecraft is traveling in interstellar space, there is basically no need to worry about being hit by debris, unless your luck is extremely bad.
Since the probability of a spacecraft traveling in interstellar space being hit by debris is very small, should we not have to consider the possibility of being hit when we conduct interstellar voyages in the future? Of course not. Although this probability is very small, it is not a zero probability event either. Therefore, in future interstellar voyages, the possibility of being hit by cosmic debris must be fully considered.
You must know that once the number of people becomes an interstellar civilization, we will carry out interstellar colonization. At that time, there may be more than one million people on a colonizing spacecraft. If the bad luck is hit by the debris of the universe, it will be devastating. disaster. Therefore, in the interstellar voyage of the number of people, various technical methods are still needed to avoid the possibility of being hit by cosmic debris, and this probability must be kept close to zero.
To realize that the probability of a spacecraft being hit by cosmic debris is zero during high-speed navigation, it is necessary to realize a very powerful long-range radar scan. When we are driving forward on the earth, there will be satellites for navigation, which can effectively avoid collisions. In the future interstellar voyages, we also need a more powerful radar scanning function, which can detect the cosmic debris on the way forward in time, so as to make evasion in advance.
In addition to the powerful radar scanning function, a safer method is to set a safe and stable route. In a science fiction novel, when the cosmic civilization conducts interstellar voyages, there are fixed interstellar routes, and these interstellar routes are safe routes selected by the predecessors for continuous exploration. We must know that the universe is too big. Although the space is very empty, no one can be sure of the dangers in the empty space.
Of course, interstellar voyage is still too far away for the number of people. Our goal for a long time in the future is to explore the solar system and finally get out of the solar system. Even if it is such a goal, it will take a long time for the number of people to achieve it. You know, the solar system includes the Oort cloud, and the diameter range is at least 2 light-years. It is basically impossible to get out of the solar system before we achieve the primary sublight flight.