Physics Help? (1 Viewer)

[onytae]

Hi, I'm having trouble answering this question. What are the important points to mention to get four marks?

Most celestial objects outside our Solar System are too distant to reach at current maximum speeds. Discuss the prospect of near light speed space travel to such destinations with reference to relativistic changes in mass, time and length.

THANK YOU!

 

[HiRe education]

Hi there! Here's an extract from one of our theory workbooklets that may help:


o Time dilation means that the time taken to reach a destination is less for astronauts in a relativistic spacecraft compared to a stationary observer on Earth. Another way to interpret it, is that the astronauts will age slower than people back on Earth and effectively live longer compared to a stationary observer on Earth.

o Length contraction also means that as a spacecraft speeds up, the apparent distance to objects ahead of it decreases. This makes long distance space journeys become a possibility.

o However, mass dilation means that as the spacecraft reaches relativistic speeds, it will also gain mass. As the speed of the craft approaches the speed of light, its mass approaches infinity. By F = ma, this means that given any amount of thrust, the acceleration of the rocket would approach zero.


o Therefore, time dilation allows space trips to be shorter, length contraction allows the distance of trips to be shorter, but mass increase poses an energy problem for relativistic space travel.