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When Wprlds Collide had it right!

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 1:26 pm    Post subject: When Wprlds Collide had it right! Reply with quote

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I posted this in the When Worlds Collide thread back in December, 2021, but it occurred to me today that it belongs here as well. It inspired some good replies on the other thread, so maybe it'll get a few here too.

It's an amazing discovery, and I had fun coming up story ideas to go with it. Very Happy
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Holy mackerel! Get THIS, guys! Shocked

An article in International Business Times called —

Rogue Planets Approach Light Speed, Propelled By Supermassive Black Hole, Study Says

— states that a star and one-or-more of the planets which orbit it can be catapulted off into space at 30 million miles an hour (which is almost 5% of light speed) after whipping around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way!.

Here's an excerpt from the article.
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Rogue planets could be hurtling through space at speeds approaching 30-million-miles-per-hour--nearly 5 percent the speed of light — launched in slingshot fashion by the extreme gravitational pull of the supermassive black hole believed to be at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, scientists have calculated.

"These warp-speed planets would be some of the fastest objects in our galaxy. If you lived on one of them, you'd be in for a wild ride from the center of the galaxy to the universe at large," said astrophysicist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The hypothetical phenomenon occurs when an orbiting planet's star is sucked into Milky Way's supermassive black hole and the planet is catapulted away before entering the black hole's event horizon.

Another scenario involves a dual star system, in which one star is swallowed up by the black hole and its twin is ejected away, carrying with it any orbiting planets.

Astronomers have already observed stars careening through the galaxy at high velocities as a result of the dual star scenario. The first such star was observed seven years go leaving the Milky Way at a speed of 1.5 million miles per hour, UKPA reported.






Avi Loeb, the astrophysicist mentioned above, is the chairman of Harvard's astronomy department — he man mentioned several times the thread about Oumuamua called Could it be....RAMA?, and he's the man who proposed that the strange object acted like a lightsail! Very Happy

Here's two other articles on the subject of hyper-accelerated stars in our galaxy.

Planets Could Travel Along with Rogue ‘Hypervelocity’ Stars, Spreading Life Throughout the Universe

Rogue Planets Could be Habitable

So, where's the story in all this?

Well, first of all, it explains one possible reason why the star Bellus and its planet, Zyra, were wandering through space in When Worlds Collide.






Obviously the theory above doesn't claim that wandering stars with orbiting planets would always be hyper-accelerated, so the relatively slow velocity we see in When Worlds Collide is entirely possible.

But what if a star about the size of the Sun, which had an Earth-sized planet orbiting it that was the home and advanced race, actually passed through our Solar System at a relatively safe distance from all the planets.

How long would it take for this rogue star system — which we'll call Stella Vega (which is Latin for "a star that wanders") — to travel the full circumference of Pluto's obit . . . 36,000,000,000 miles?

Well, since 36,000,000,000 miles divided by 30,000,000 mph is 1200 hours, then 1,200 hours divided by 24 hours is 50 days.

With that in mind, picture this. Cool

A star and it's orbiting planet are rushing through the outer edge of the Solar System, and it will be headed back out into the void in just one month and 20 days.






During that time, mankind is stunned when we’re contacted by the inhabitants of the Earth-like planet in the rogue star system, and we establish friendly communications with this advanced, remarkably humanoid race.

These aliens use their awesome technology to tap into all the databases on Earth and absorb every scrap of information they can acquire during their brief 30-million-mph flyby.

Why do they do this? Well, that’s obvious. Very Happy

The sad fact is that these aliens can never travel to other planets and meet the beings who live there because their own star system is passing all the others at 5% the speed of light! Sad

In other words, they're effectively isolated from the galaxy by the simple fact that their planet is rushing by everything so rapidly, even their fastest starships can't slow down enough to land and meet the inhabitants of the worlds they encounter!

And even if they could land on a world they were streaking by, their home planet would quickly leave them behind, stranded on the alien planet! Baring the discovery of faster-than-light propulsion, it's highly unlikely their spacecraft would be fast enough to overtake their planet and allow the crew to return home! Shocked






But in this hypothetical situation I'm describing, the Stella Vagan's awesome technology allows them easily hack into our computer systems and collect vast amounts of information.

In the fictional situation I'm describing, these brilliant aliens are eager to repay mankind for the rare gift of new knowledge they've acquire during their lonely journey. And just to show their gratitude, they're willing to share a treasure trove of information from their own culture and technology. Cool

Add to this the fact that the millions of inhabitants on Stella Vaga enthusiastically apply their own genius to solve some of Earth's problems, and they offer their solutions. The planet's inhabitants embrace this new challenge, and they hope to be as much help to mankind as possible before the communications link between the worlds becomes more difficult to maintain because of the increasing distance between them.






During the 50 days while Stella Vaga passes through the solar system, millions of interpersonal relationships would be created between humans and Vagans who transmit message to each other.

Sadly, all the members of both species know the ability to converse with their new friends is doomed to end eventually — and they can never have any physical contact! Sad

One aspect of the advanced technology which the Stella Vagans share with Earth is the propulsion system they’ve developed over the last few decades, a spacecraft capable of reaching a speed of 15 million mph — which is 2.5% the speed of light.






They hope to eventually improve the efficiency so that it will equal or surpass the velocity of their hyper-accelerate star system and finally make it possible for the entire population of migrate to a world like Earth!

(Guys, here comes the best part of this concept!) Cool

When the supercomputers on Stella Vaga upload the work of renowned scientist Miguel Alcubierre — a Mexican theoretical physicist — they discover an improved model of the formula which governs the way their propulsion system works.

This next part of my story isn’t science fiction. It’s science fact! Here’s what I found on the website called EarthSky.
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Miguel Alcubierre, a Mexican theoretical physicist, showed that compressing spacetime in front of the spaceship while expanding it behind was mathematically possible within the laws of General Relativity.

So, what does that mean? Imagine the distance between two points is 10 meters (33 feet). If you are standing at point A and can travel one meter per second, it would take 10 seconds to get to point B. However, let’s say you could somehow compress the space between you and point B so that the interval is now just one meter. Then, moving through spacetime at your maximum speed of one meter per second, you would be able to reach point B in about one second.

In theory, this approach does not contradict the laws of relativity since you are not moving faster than light in the space around you. Alcubierre showed that the warp drive from “Star Trek” was in fact theoretically possible!

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This startling revelation causes the Stella Vagans to modify the propulsion system on one of the prototypes they’ve built, and they conduct a test flight which proves the starship can travel at 10% of light speed, just as Miguel Alcubierre theory proposes — which is a velocity of 67,061,662 mph.






As the rogue star system reaches the far edge of the solar system, the Stella Vagans launch a fleet of re-engineered starships back towards Earth. Leaving the speeding star system at over 60 million miles an hour, the starships race towards Earth at 30 million mph (cancelling half the planet's velocity away from Earth), and arriving in just 108 hours, or 4 1/2 days!





(I’m not making this up, guys. I did my homework. But if anybody finds a mistake in my calculations, please let me know. Very Happy)

The Stella Vagans present us with all except one of the ships in the fleet, as a gift to express their gratitude for giving them the ability to escape from their rogue star system after being trapped on it for thousands of years! Cool

They're also hoping we'll build more of the ships so that human's can visit Stella Vaga — as well as the planet in another star system they'll eventually migrate to.

The crew of the ship that will be returning to Stella Vaga with all the Vagans who brought the fleet to us offers to transport a group of carefully selected scientists from Earth back to Stella Vaga for an extended visit!

So, this wildly imaginative (and totally original) story has a happy ending, along with the potential for numerous sequels.
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~ By God, if this post doesn’t inspire a flurry of replies from the intelligent members of All Sci-Fi, I'll be very surprised!! Laughing

Hey, what other sci-fi message board would offer such a great idea for it’s members to enjoy and offer their own thoughts about! ShockedSad

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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