• Question: How long would it take to travel to the most "Earth-like" planet?

    Asked by Elodie #SpaceInvasion to COLFlight, Anne, Beth, Jon on 15 Oct 2015. This question was also asked by banana2003.
    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 15 Oct 2015:

      Sergio:
      Hi Elodie!
      I think that your question needs to be completed with an addition in ordered to be answered, i.e. how fast would we be able to travel?
      The closest possibly habitable planet that we have found so far, is about 10 lightyears away from us. This means that if our spacecraft travelled at the speed of light, it would take 10 years to get there.

      However, the fastest spacecraft to ever leave Earth so far was New Horizons, which travelled at roughly 36 thousands miles per hour, i.e. 10 miles per second.
      The light travels at 185 thousand miles per hour, which is 18500 times faster than our fastest spacecraft ever!
      This means that with our current technloogy, it would take almost 200 thousand years to get to travel to that planet!

      Yes, we need to make more research about space travel and find some new technology, otherwise we will never get there 😉

    • Photo: Beth Healey

      Beth Healey answered on 16 Oct 2015:

      Hi Elodie#SpaceInvasion!!

      Kepler-186f is one of the most ‘Earth Like’ planets with a similar size (a bit larger) and orbiting in the habitable zone from its star. For more information about Keplar-186f see:

      https://www.nasa.gov/ames/kepler/nasas-kepler-discovers-first-earth-size-planet-in-the-habitable-zone-of-another-star

      However, as Sergio says, the problem would be getting there!

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