Deep space travel on a par with Star Trek is within the realm of human possibility, according to a German astrophysicist.
By riding a new solitary wave called a soliton, spaceships could travel faster than light, viz., more than 186,000 miles per second, and reach other solar systems in just a few years.
A scientist at Göttingen University in Germany, Dr. Erik Lentz, is working on hyper-fast ‘solitons’ that can travel at any speed while still staying within the known laws of physics.
Existing rocket technology is limited by Einstein’s theory of relativity, meaning it’s physically impossible to travel faster than the speed of light.
Currently, it would take astronauts tens of thousands of years to reach Proxima Centauri, a relatively close star system 4.3 light years from the Sun.
Traveling the Lentz way, it would take less than four years. “Warp speed, Mr. Sulu.”
A soliton, or ‘warp bubble,’ is a compact wave that acts like a particle while maintaining its shape and moving at constant velocity, Lentz explained. It’s all about yet-to-be explored configurations of space-time curvature.
We can’t say we understand what that means, but if this latter-day Einstein says it’s possible, then I’ll buy a ticket to that.
Scientific explanation of the Lentz breakthrough HERE.