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Or are mindbogglingly slow. If we can reach 90% of lightspeed we would have a good Lorentz number to travel the whole milkeyway in a few weeks. We would see a very different earth though when we come back.


Time dilation at 0.9 c is only 2.3x (where 1x is no dilation).

   Lorentz factor γ = 1 / sqrt(1 - (v/c)²) = 1/sqrt(1 - 0.9²) = 2.29
To travel 87,400 light years at near light speed, in a subjective time of a month requires a dilation of 87400 years * 12 months / year = 1048800, with a speed of:

   (1-(1/1048800)²) c = 0.9999999999990908 c
which is about 0.27 mm/s slower than the speed of light.

For comparison, the protons at CERN only hit 0.999999991 c (https://public-archive.web.cern.ch/en/LHC/Facts-en.html) and the electrons at SLAC only hit 0.99999999995 c (https://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/5500/slac-pub-56...).




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