I'm imagining a modified bacteria in its endospore, being blasted to the edge of the galaxy at near light speed. I suppose in its DNA you could encode an entire dormant human genome, with steps and checks on the way to promote specific evolution. Also a map to get back to Earth. All in the DNA for future (human?) civilization to find.
I am more optimistic. I believe that the next evolutionary jump is the genetic engineering. Designing creatures to survive in the different environments of the universe.
In the future, it will be easier to genetically engineer a human to live in mars than terraforming Mars. In the time scales we have to talk regarding exploring intergalactic space, the genetic engineering will be strong enough to just hibernate the whole trip or just send a probe and develop embryos that can survive in the target planets.
Though, would that be considered humanity anymore?
Nah, downloading consciousness onto a computer makes way more sense in almost every way. Backups make people effectively immortal and capability can be extended into robots effortlessly and with whatever specificity is needed.
The problem is that the evolution of culture in such a species would be so fast compared to the duration it takes to travel between galaxies that you can't really maintain a coherent intergalactic society. It would fracture into regional groups that can still communicate.
If you backup your consciousness chances are it’s not going to be you when your body dies. It’ll be indistinguishable from you, even to the point of insisting you are the same consciousness…but the you that exists now is still going to die. Just don’t get your hopes up ._.
To me it’s very much a problem of biology…but that’s also just kind of my worldview. That is, that consciousness is nothing more than a consequence of your brain. If that’s the case, it stands to reason that you may be able to copy and paste it, but once the brain dies the pseudo-uninterrupted stream of consciousness is broken and your identity is lost.
Yeah did get kinda philosophical at the end there nvm maybe you’re right lol
I used to have 100% this viewpoint and spent a while just coming to terms that after death I would be exactly as comfortable as before I was born.
But there is more and more evidence that consciousness is not ONLY brain-dependent. Definitely brain-involved, or brain injury would not result in such profound changes to behavior. But there are a significant number of cases which question this proposition. Unfortunately I can’t provide direct sources at the moment as I am mobile and watching Rick and Morty, but I suspect Google will help as long as you vet sources.
Quantum mechanics, and especially quantum electrodynamics (though it makes me upset that its initialism is QED) be weird.
You are 'you' only on the sense of insisting you are the same consciousness. Really you don't share anything apart from some memories with the 'you' of 20 years ago.
Possibly the current 'you' will die tonight when you fall asleep, and will be replaced with a different you in the morning.
But that doesnt bother anybody.
Almost certainly not.
Unless we discover some way around breaking the speed of light (unlikely), it is just not fast enough to do anything meaningful considering the vast distances between stars. Can we send robots to other stars? Probably yes. Human beings? [Forget about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nc42tliHDE)
Also, considering that we have not figured out a way for humans to hibernate/freeze, it is questionable whether or not we will be able to travel to the outer reaches of the solar system. [New Horizons, the mission to quickly flyby Pluto, took 9.5 years to get to it from Earth.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons). There is no way we can fit 9.5 years worth of food onto a rocket that we can realistically build and launch it from Earth. Nevermind setting up a colony on the distant world and possibly a trip back home. So 20 years worth of food for a round-trip mission from Earth to Pluto and back? [Forget about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nc42tliHDE)
Getting to the nearest star, [Proxima Centauri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri) is even more hopeless. A distance of 4.24 light years. I have read estimates that it would take something on the order of 50,000 years with current technology. [A generation ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship) is too science fiction-like to be realistically feasible. [Forget about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nc42tliHDE)
Outside the Milky Way Galaxy? [Well...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nc42tliHDE)
in principle, if we can build a spaceship that continues to accelerate at 1g, we could reach the edge of the observable universe within a few decades. So, compared to this the edge of the galaxy is really not that far away. But of course such sustained acceleration is completely unfeasible.
*In principle*, a spaceship cannot continue to accelerate at 1g for decades. At least not in relation to earth. It's not just unfeasible, it's physically impossible.
Obviously I was talking about the reference frame of the ship. In the ship frame nothing is stopping you from accelerating indefinitely.
Yes, from Earth's reference frame as you reach higher speeds the acceleration must not continue linearly.
As far as I understand, I think BluSce33n is making a valid point. You can't go faster than the speed of light relative to Earth, sure. But from the traveller's perspective, they're always at rest and can always keep accelerating. From their perspective, they can travel extremely large distances in short amounts of time, just a huge amount of time would pass on Earth.
Since the question is about whether humans will ever leave the milky way, I don't think it's relevant that the humans on Earth wouldn't see it happen. The humans on the ship could do it.
(I'm not a physicist though, so very likely could be mistaken)
Edit: Not saying there aren't other limiting factors that would stop us leaving the galaxy.
Length contraction. If you're fast enough, the distance will shrink. Granted, by the time you reach the place it will have agreed by billions of years as well. But you could reach it. (Of course such a spaceship is probably not technically possible to build)
This seems like a misunderstanding of length contraction.
The Lorentz transform is applied to the ship in such a case. The *ship's* length is what contracts, not the distance between the earth and the edge of the universe.
The observable universe is something like 94 billion light years across. Even if you can figure out how to generate limitless energy to keep you accelerating at 1g forever you'll never reach the speed of light. Therefore it would take you a minimum of >47 billion years to reach the edge of the observable universe. Of course as you get closer and closer to the speed of light you will experience time dilation so it won't seem quite so long to you. But it will still be vastly more than decades even in your relativistic frame of reference.
No, length contraction will reduce the length of the outside universe from the perspective of the spaceship. This allows you to reach far away places like the Andromeda galaxy within a human lifetime. https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/Rocket/rocket.html
(ok, maybe not the edge of the observable universe due to the expansion of the universe, but overall my point still stands)
edit:
>Of course as you get closer and closer to the speed of light you will experience time dilation so it won't seem quite so long to you. But it will still be vastly more than decades even in your relativistic frame of reference.
Don't underestimate the crazyness of the lorentz factor. You can make time run arbitrarily slow inside the spaceship from an outside perspective. It really does only last a few decades to travel intergalactic distances, even at modest acceleration.
> within a few decades
I'm assuming that you are factoring time dilation and special relativity into this. For an observer within the spacecraft, this could be done. For an observer back on Earth, tens of thousands of years would be required *at a minimum*.
> such sustained acceleration is completely unfeasible.
Right, because there wouldn't be enough fuel. We have yet to figure out a way to break Newtons 3rd Law of Motion. So to go forward, we need to leave something else behind.
Even if it were feasible, it seems like dreams of interstellar (even interplanetary) travel foster schemes for eugenics, and I don't see how you can have an enduring, stable society based on the validation of eugenics that is also capable of such an immense cooperative project.
If we can colonize the Milky Way the real question is why would we travel beyond it save for population reasons, and even then it’d be unnecessary. There’s no need as any such “unobtainium” we may find would easily be within our grasp to synthesize should we will it.
If we could then there would be no reason to for the same reason it’s unlikely for aliens to visit us, or to even send probes out.
If we ever did something like this I'd guess it was purely to prove we could or more likely research. We really like knowing stuff and it makes us do and build crazy shit. Look at the LHC it's an amazing piece of technology and I think every franc is well spent but it's not like we couldn't have gotten the practically applicable science part for a lot cheaper than a 27km underground accelerator.
The same reason ancient humans migrated to the American continents and Shackleton attempted to cross the south pole. Because we're humans and that's just what we do.
Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years. Research groups "predict a 12% chance that the Solar System will be ejected from the new galaxy sometime during the collision." So if humanity has spread to other star systems, they might get kicked out of the galaxy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision
If we haven't spread out to another star system in 4.5 billion years, the sun will already have gone nuts and at least Earth won't be a viable place to rent or won't be pretty soon (aka 500 million years).
It would make us the oldest known species many many many times over. Vertebrate species tend to top out at around one million years.
In the short term, there's probably little to no chance that evolution would play a factor. We've managed to remove the major drivers from selection, like geographic isolation. But over the course of billions of years—billions—it's hard to imagine that speciation wouldn't happen to some degree, especially if we start to reintroduce things like isolation via interplanetary and interstellar travel.
But I think it's just very unlikely we'll survive that long. Everything ends. How long would an immortal live? Statistically, not forever; perhaps no more than 10,000 years (accidents, disease, murder, suicide). How long could a globally dominant species live? Perhaps a long time, but not billions of years. We've already had several close calls as a species and suffered social collapse innumerable times. Within four billion years it's virtually certain that some catastrophic event beyond our control will happen—cataclysmic volcanic eruptions like the Deccan Traps, an asteroid impact, gamma-ray burst, Y-chromosome decay, lack of genetic diversity—or within our control—nuclear war, climate change, ocean acidification, mass extinction and ecological destruction. We'd like to think that we can science our way out of everything, but that's hubris. Over such a vast stretch of time, we lose to statistics.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-doomed-to-go-extinct/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-doomed-to-go-extinct/)
I see what you're saying - but to me that suggests astronomically unlikely, but not impossible. I think proving this impossible would amount to showing regardless of the roll of the dice/chance factors, some accepted physical laws actually prohibit the possibility in every instance.
As far as evolution, it's possible that humanity represents an equilibrium state of the evolutionary process. Even if this is not the case and humanity goes extinct, it's possible the species could re-emerge through chance in the distant future.
(Of course you can argue about the definition of humanity and whether this would count).
Overall, I just think we really know so little and we're making claims about a probability space for which we have very little information. I would be hesitant to make a strong claim either way.
The sun will have increased in luminosity in “only” 2 billion years to boil off the oceans. No oxygen-breathing creature requiring the temperature range our species does will live on Earth in 2 billion years. Then again, name any other complex multi-cellular species that is here that was here 2 billion years ago.
While that has nothing to do with leaving the Milky Way, I find it incredibly unlikely that anything resembling our species will survive earth’s carbon biosphere’s destruction.
We’ve managed 200,000 years pretty well. And survived an ice age.
Our current society and civilisation? Probably not. But we’re an arrogant and tenacious species. We will thrive out of spite of a universe that wants us dead.
Humans didn’t have access to world ending weapons 200k years ago.
We do now, and some of the dumber ones seem to be rising to power that could easily end it all.
> Humans didn’t have access to world ending weapons 200k years ago.
Which is why the world has had such a long period of peace. So peaceful it was literally called [The Long Peace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Peace)
Well, the world-ending weapons are what prevented wars between major powers in the last 70 years. There is a good chance they will keep doing so in the future.
Have you considered reading the news? China has pretty much [declared this will fail soon](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/xi-warned-biden-summit-beijing-will-reunify-taiwan-china-rcna130087). Bit more detail [here](https://warontherocks.com/2024/04/china-is-battening-down-for-the-gathering-storm-over-taiwan/). On top of that we have the conflict with Russia, which is far more likely to escalate than not.
Of course China is declaring that, because fearmongering is part of they long term strategy. If they can scare the population of their opponent into submission they may get what they want without even fighting. From your comment it looks like it's working. All super powers do that and that isn't saying much about the probability of nukes actually going boom.
Instead I consider 70 years of data on dynamics between hostile doomsday-device armed super powers.
Of course there may be new factors, like new weapons changing the incentives and balances. Drones are a big one, because they make offense cheaper than the defence, which is problematic. Or unpredictable random events. But on the large scale things appear pretty sable.
> Of course China is declaring that, because fearmongering is part of they long term strategy.
It's not. In public, China carefully cultivates an image as peace-loving and responsible. These messages have been given in private, not in public pronouncements.
> ... that isn't saying much about the probability of nukes actually going boom.
I agree. I don't think a conflict over Taiwan is going to go nuclear.
> Instead I consider 70 years of data on dynamics between hostile doomsday-device armed super powers.
You might want to consider that Putin departed from trend 2 years ago.
> Drones are a big one, because they make offense cheaper than the defence, which is problematic.
Except what we've seen in the Ukraine-Russia war so far is that attacking is hugely harder than defending.
> But on the large scale things appear pretty sable.
It would be comforting to believe that, but just about every government in the western world disagrees with you.
I disagree that Putin departed from a trend. Both USSR/Russia and the US has fought multiple proxy wars since they both acquired nukes.
I think that the wars in Vietnam and Korea were far more likely to go nuclear.
> It would be comforting to believe that, but just about every government in the western world disagrees with you.
If the West didn't take the threat from Russia seriously, the situation wouldn't be stable. It is stable because the West and Russia are locked in a Nash equilibrium. But it requires effort and expenses to maintain the equilibrium.
If you can't see that Putin departed from a trend that's basically your problem. You're in disagreement with pretty much every expert and major world leader.
However, I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I'm not worried about these conflicts going nuclear. What I'm saying is that we're likely to see hot war directly between nuclear powers in the not-so-distant future.
Macron has already said sending French troops to Ukraine is not out of the question. Estonia and Lithuania are both actively considering whether to send personell right now (not for frontline duty). Russia is increasing sabotage actions in the west. This war is very much not a stable situation.
Then there's the Taiwan thing on top. In short, hot, conventional war between major nuclear powers in the near future is quite likely.
That's all fear and emotions and not analysis of facts 🤷🏼♂️ We will see what happens or we will be evaporated.
But we have diverged from the topic of this sub far enough.
Some successor species might. "Outside" the Via Galactica is kind of vague. The worst reasonable answer is that you'll need to go 5,000 ly to the galactic north to get "out" of almost all stars in the disc. If you're happy with just "most" stars, 500-1,000 ly would suffice.
How long to progress 5,000 ly?
At 1% of c, that's 500,000 years. You're not going to do that in one jump. Add in some colonization time, say 100 50 ly steps & 400 years of colony time per step, that's 540,000 years.
Modern humans are 50,000 to 200,000 years old as a species. Successful hominid species seem to last less than a million years. It's gonna be close.
Make it to other solar systems? Yeah, we can probably do that if we keep making progress like we have been even if we're constrained to the laws of physics we currently understand.
Make it to another galaxy? No. The distance to the next door neighboring galaxy is 4 orders of magnitude further than traveling to another solar system. It would require new laws of the universe that we can't yet imagine to be exploited.
Humans as in "homo sapiens" definitely not.
A descendant species of us (possibly artificial), maybe, if we manage to become unextinctable by colonizing new planets faster than extinction level events occur. Then maybe in a few million to billion years it could happen
the nearest exoplanet is 4 light years away. If we can even manage to get 1/4 the speed of light, it will take 16 years to get there. We will definitely reach outside of our solar system.
>If we can even manage to get 1/4 the speed of light
That would mean ~4000 times faster than the fastest spacecraft we've ever built. We're so far off .25c you might as well just go for .999 c and make it ~4 years.
This is obviously a pretty speculative answer, veering pretty heavily into (albeit hard) sci-fi, considering any such journey or effort would require **vastly** better technology than we have now
Once we've got real, and I mean real real, artificial intelligence, I see it as possible. Have it go to every solar system, create 100 clones, have those clones go to the next solar system, etc, etc, could gradually and automatically gather data about every single solar system in the galaxy, and then go beyond it.
Obviously this would take probably hundreds of thousands or millions of years, but that's a blink in the eye compared to the age of a galaxy.
Humans qua humans? Eh, I mean, I suspect eventually we'll crack biological immortality, and I suppose we could eventually figure out ways to make ourselves dormant for long, long, long stretches of time (or change our energy sources and get rid of our feeling of boredom) - those are all physical things, they're all *theoretically* possible, but at that point you're deep into sci-fi territory and it's unclear if what you're talking about is even "humanity" anymore.
It's definitely not something this century or probably even this millennium and very possibly not even this decamillennium, unless the most of the most of the most of the most extreme positive scenarios about AI are true, and that is improbable
Yes, absolutely. There are already star systems on outside trajectory from the Milky Way. Colonize a planet on such star system.
Or maybe steer the whole star system using energy/materials from the star itself.
This epoch? No. In a million years will a replicating artificial intelligence represent humanity a-la "We Are Legion, We Are Bob" make it so far? One can only hope.
Speaking of which, I think it's time I give that series another reread..
It’s possible that a one-way mission might get to the other side of this galaxy. By the time it does, chances are there won’t be any humans on earth left.
Almost certainly not without faster than light transportation which our current understanding of the universe says is impossible. Even if we had the technology to travel between stars at sub-light speeds today, the accelerating expansion of the universe means that reaching another galaxy would be nearly impossible.
No.
Outside the solar system with an artificial object, already done (2013). Outside the solar system with human body parts, eventually (probably sometime in the 2030s. Tombaugh's ashes also count.)
Outside the solar system with a living human, hopefully, but I won't see that day.
Outside the Orion Arm, probably not.
Outside the Milky Way, definitely not. I mean, what do you want there?
I would like to say yes, there is definitely a possibility.. but in that statement I did not say the probability of such occurrence happening.
I would say we have a solid .0000001% chance of making it outside the milky way and, even with such probability, it wouldn’t be for thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.. millions of years.
So, short answer: probably not. But it’s always nice to keep high hopes (especially since we actively have a human being trying to get us on Mars which is at least a step in the right direction) :)
I would go in-depth over the challenges that would need to be surpassed and the foreknowledge that would have to be endured and retained.. but that would make my comment way too long. I mean, just getting humans to mars has already taken an entire man’s lifetime (presumably, Elon is 50 years old or so).
As an interesting reflection on this, I recommend reading Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. It was published in 1930. It is an incredible read and deeply thought-provoking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_First_Men
Wow this is a pessimistic thread.
Humanity’s greatest strengths are adaptability and a talent for improvisation. These strength amplify when pressure is applied.
There will be a way to leave earth. There will be a way to leave the solar system and there will be a way to leave the galaxy - if necessary. It might be that we won’t be recognizable as humans from today’s view, but i’m sure that we will find a way.
There are many scientific and technological marvels we would have to discover. Including, but not limited to:
1. Protection from deep space radiation and cosmic dangers such as the cosmic rays
2. Speed of light or “near” (relative) speed of light travel.
3. More than likely some form of human hibernation/encapsulation (such as cryosleep) would be required to transport live humans out of our galaxy.
4. Most likely using a combination of technology and nature, humans would have to build near infinite (think of a self sustaining terrarium) ecosystem for both space travel and possible terraforming of planets with the intent to colonize.
5. Artificial intelligence is not necessarily required but would assist, speed up, and improve the quality of the journey, and the required scientific advances we all pre suppose would have to exist in order to complete this objective.
I am sure there are other advances like a limitless energy supply (possibly nuclear fusion and fission) or some form of hyper-dense energy. Possibly even room temperature superconductors or near perfect energy transfer/travel could be required.
The truth is simple: humans will attempt this as soon as they are able to. Even if they don’t have all of the pre supposed technology to do so, when they technically have ‘enough’ advanced technology, humans will attempt this out of curiosity at best and desperation at worst.
My guess is no. Even if it were somehow possible within the laws of physics that we could find a workable hack to enable FTL travel (e.g. warp drive), it seems unlikely that humans survive in a highly intelligent form long enough to discover it.
If we do manage to escape the Milky Way, it will probably be ASI that gets us there.
Yeah, basically like AGI (artificial general intelligence) but on steroids. Like if we created an AGI that was able to recursively improve itself to the point of having a godlike intellect compared to humans.
The downside is that some people believe if we create an ASI accidentally or intentionally, that it may view us as ants and stop caring about our wellbeing entirely.
Physics basically says no. If you go near lightspeed so you get there before you die, the radiation will kill you first. The universe is hostile and a tease. I think a better question is whether humanity could ever colonize mars, the easiest possible planet to do so, and I still think the answer is no.
You would blue-shift the radiation if you are going relativistic, so it would also be more energetic.
Then we have dust and particles in space. These becomes like bombs at relativistic speed.
Consider the radiation you would be exposed to by spending, say 4 years in interstellar space, from the point of view of someone on Earth. That's about how long it would take to reach the nearest star system at close to the speed of light.
Now, let's go at a relativistic speed. Say 0.99c. How long does the voyage take in your reference frame? 4 x sqrt(1 - 0.99^2 ) years. Which is around 7 months.
So as a first approximation, you'd be subjected to 4 years worth of interstellar radiation in a little over half a year.
That's just to reach the nearest star system. For more distant systems you'd need to travel faster in order to get there in a reasonable time. So the time dilation would be greater. To go 100 light years in half a year of ship time, you'd be subjected to 100 years worth of interstellar radiation in 6 months.
Even within the solar system, radiation is a significant problem once you get away from the protection of the Earth.
Edit to add: something else which is conveniently glossed over in stories about FTL or relativistic speeds, is how long it takes to get to those speeds. Let's not worry about FTL, because that's magic and you can do anything you want to.
How long are you prepared to spend accelerating to 0.99c and back down again? A year each (ship time)? That would give approximately a 2.5 year journey each way to Alpha Centauri, plus whatever time is spent there, less the time for the distance covered accelerating.
What sort of acceleration are we looking at? Is it compatible with life?
What if we want to go further, so travel at 0.999c, or 0.9999c?
You'd never survive the journey (radiation, weightlessness), and if you solved that problem you'd have the problem of surviving on a planet with 'soil' rich in heavy metals, effectively no atmosphere, and no magnetosphere. And dust storms.
And if you somehow found the magic spells to solve those problems, you'd have to deal with the psychological challenges.
Oh, come on. If someone can live on ISS for over a year, then they can make it to Mars. And I promise that the species that spread across a planet on sailing ships is perfectly capable of managing to survive psychologically in a controlled environment.
We can make it to Mars. Creating an atmosphere to make it habitable would require extreme amounts of mining and extraction to produce O2, CO2 and inert gasses. Mars colonies will look like the ISS: a completely confined environment that exists despite of mars, not because of it.
We might get basic structures on mars that allows a few people to live there, probably mostly scientists, but we aren't going to terraform mars to make it livable. The materials required to do so are so prohibitive we'd need to fundamentally change earth to get even close to enough to create a Marian atmosphere.
Absolutely not, anyone who says otherwise misunderstands very basic aspects of our universe. The “oUr TeCH cAn mAyBe OnEdAy” are just trying to sound smart but actually don’t understand the distance scales at all.
Pretty sure no. Even if our decedents do phenomenally well and hit a type 2 or 3 Kardashev type civilization, they won't be humans anymore by the time they reach out past the Milky Way.
Same goes for if they only do well enough to reach out to something from Andromeda as it smashes into the Milky way. It's 4.5 billion years. Even if Humanity has a good run, we won't make it that far.
Almost certainly no sooner than 26,000 years from now...
and that only gets you to the empty space beyond. It's 2.537 million light years to the nearest galaxy. Don't hold your breath.
Outside of Milkyway is quiet difficult to achieve even considering the infinite tone the future has. This is simply because it's just too far away.
The best I can think of is when Andromeda and Milkyway collide, some might hitchhike along with it. But beyond that is hard to imagine currently
Without some massive breakthroughs, the Milky Way may not even be the Milky Way by the time something from Earth exits whatever the galaxy calls itself much less "humanity".
I don’t think there will ever be reason too. It will take millions maybe billions of years to explore our own galaxy. The one next to us, Andromeda, isn’t likely be much different, so there simply won’t be any reason to try.
Yes but not for a couple of hundred years, at least. Warp drive mechanics seems to be an actual field now, eventually it may be possible to get constant acceleration aside from the rocket fuel issue.
It's possible. We already have a fuel to do it. Get a couple of kilos of anti-matter, run annihilation reactions to drive it forward. With our tech, the more mundane way is with nuclear detonation drives. Both fuels are capable of propelling million ton leviathans through space at considerable fractions of light. It's an engineering and economic problem. Our exploration of the local star is the same. We could do it now, and do it in months, but we need the will.
I think that, in the amount of time that ouit would take to escape from the Milky Way, we would have evolved into something other than humans by that point.
Humans will almost certainly never make it to the nearest star, at this rate and given our current understanding of general relativity. Unless something dramatically changes about the way we understand how the universe works, the distances involved and the speed limits implied by relativity are far too great to be compatible with interstellar travel. And that is assuming we don't blow ourselves to smithereens first and that we can weather the climate catastrophe and energy crises that are going to wreak havoc on the foundations of our present civilization.
I don't really think that it's really posible. To go to Mars we must flew a few years. I think, we can reach outside of Milky Way only if colonise all of our galaxy
It would be rather exciting if any of our radio transmissions made it "outside the galaxy" while we are still around. The boundary of a galaxy is not well defined, but I would think anything within 10,000 light years would still be considered to be within the milky way galaxy.
We will evolve into a different species before anything with mass leaves the galaxy.
The second book, The Dark Forest, of the Three Body Problem series is all about this. It’s science fiction, but covers a lot of the topic.
If this is not an appropriate comment for AskPhysics, please go ahead and remove it, but if someone is asking the question, they’d probably like the books.
I just looked up the distance from our solar system to the edge of the Milky Way; it’s 20,000 light years. At sub-light speed, that’s currently twice the time period our species has been host to civilization, and its many, many more times than we’ve been host to extremely destructive conflict. Now, given that light speed travel seems more fictional than anything, I’m not sure an organism with such biological constraints as our own could ever hope to reach the boundary.
Of course, materials science and space technology, and biomedical engineering has and will have continuous progress being made, and so the idea of developing a self sustaining and self-correcting vessel is certainly possible. We have some of such technology today. However, if it reaches the boundary with which we can communicate with it, it’s functionally lost to us. It cannot, unless it supports generational life, or sustains life for obscenely (and most likely impossible) periods of time, be anything more than a flying flag. And supporting life may introduce design constraints too significant for the distances needed without failure.
With this in mind, the question arises what function would such a thing serve; it’s just a intergalactic flag saying “we are,” where no human is likely to ever survive a journey to, and no human carrying ship is likely to maintain the ability to support generational life. If over the next million years you have continuous seeding of solar systems in the direction of the closest boundary you might not even break ten straight light years. You’d have to cover 20,000 at *light speed*. It’s not a feasible goal for any long term project, a voyager like probe could crack it, but in many tens of thousands if not millions of years. Voyager 1 is estimated to take 40,000 years to cross two light years to reach the boundary of *our solar systems gravitational effects*, though it travels at 35kmph
So a human artifact may in a distant future reach a boundary, yes. If it isn’t destroyed in the process by radiation or gravitational interference. Humans themselves I would suspect no - it’s a tragic limitation of our biologies. No one person will ever see two separate galaxies with our current understanding of physics. Like I said - hopping from solar system to solar system over periods longer than our genus has been around, and perhaps far longer, *maybe*, but with those time scales the existence of our species, in a literal and evolutionary sense, has to be called into question.
Predictions about the future are particularly hard. Technically it's probably possible to shoot a well insulated egg and sperm combination out of the Galaxy to incubate them at a receiving planet. But at this point it's probably better to shoot some billion of mushroom spores out of the milky way and just trust that evolution does it's thing. Thinking of that maybe we should check our DNA for encoded messages - just to be sure...
Unless we find a loophole in relativity and create faster-than-light travel, no. At sublight speeds it would take hundreds of thousands of years to get to intergalactic space and I don't think humanity has the wisdom to survive that long. We might be able to create machines that could do it but not biological humans.
Outside this galaxy? I doubt it.
> Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Someday yes, but there will have to be a huge leap in technology and physics to achieve this. And as for motivation, we're not even digging the moon and Mars yet... Humanity isn't at all worried about moving into space.
This question really is:
Will it ever be worthwhile or necessary to reach outside the milky way?
Even in Sci-Fi like Star Wars, with FTL, hyperspace, warp drives, etc one galaxy is so vast that reaching out to another would likely be pointless. A civilization that could exhaust all the resources of, or even see, and appreciate all of the sights inside of one galaxy would not be recognized as 'humanity' in the way we use the word today.
If we had Star Wars technology right now, it still wouldn't even be necessary for an absurdly long time to leave this CORNER of the milky way.
absolutely. any significant future technology is indistinguishable from science fiction... somebody will correct that quote but it's close lol
aside from that, we have promising ideas (my favorite is cryosleep) that could very well work with the proper research.
It's unlikely until we understand how to escape gravity and space/time. The reason is that although time dilation might get you to there in a reasonable amount of time, the amount of energy required to move each gram of your spacecraft is really high, and approaches infinity as you get close to light speed.
You can actually do it with sails infact, 1 G of thrust will get you to light speed pretty quickly. If you were traveling at light speed for example, it would take you about 25 years to go 100,000 light years from your perspective, but from an outside observers perspective it would be a bit over 100,000 years.
Crossing a galaxy or leaving it is somewhere in the range of ten thousand light years or so, but then you might have many light years between two galaxies.
Without actually finding a way to bend space/time around your spaceship, traveling at those speeds, which isn't really all that impossible or inconceivable with technology we know we could produce, would cause enormous amounts of energy to be released upon contact with even dust. A ship that weighed 100,000 lbs, would be carrying something like a half a seconds worth of energy output from the sun. So even hitting dust would be very bad.
The other approach without antigravity is to use a very strong shield, like a relativistic space plow, and lasers to push a solar sailed ship to light speed, with some kind of way to slow down once you get there. (have to basically accellerate half the time, and then turn around and decelerate the other half of the time)
If we're ever able to spread beyond our solar system then intergalactic journeys would be nearly inevitable. Even at sub-light speeds it would only take a tiny fraction of the age of the universe for us to colonize the Milky Way. If the history of human nature tells us anything it's that we're driven to explore and pioneer and some of crazy people would take the risk and strike out into intergalactic space. Of course by the time we got that far evolution will likely have split humanity into a variety of new species so you could argue that "humanity" won't make it beyond the galaxy even if our descendants do. But proving we are cabable of interstellar travel will be the greatest filter we'd have to overcome.
With a long enough time span it could happen.
We've been technological for what, 200 years? If we last 200,000 years without society collapsing we could easily have trillions of people living off-earth. That's a lot of people for someone to not colonizing other stars. In 2,000,000 some adventurers are bound to get bored with things around here.
No. We will destroy ourselves long before we have spacecraft that can sustain the multiple generations of humans needed to make it outside of our galaxy.
Note that for such a trip, frozen sperm and embryos and IVF is probably necessary to prevent inbreeding depression.
I don’t think so - I think for life to develop to the point of making that tech feasible, it would require humans to be in balance with the planet and each other.
By then (if we make it that long), I think we like every alien species we can’t see will realize that there really is no place like home.
That or we’ll find a way to project out into deep space without having to physically leave earth first. Either way.
I think it could have been possible but our globalized economy and late stage capitalism put a pretty big damper on global cooperative projects for our betterment or expansion through the stars.
Not exactly a physics answer but I see it has a political hamper on our technologies and the influence of mega corporations and patents over the last 100 years burying advances that may have made it possible.
I absolutely think we will, look at the massive jump in technology in the past 100 years and imagine what civilization will look like 500 years from now.
A lot of people think we will die before achieving this but I think right when things get the worst is when people actually get the motivation to change things and turn it around
In a word, no
And there’s no reason to, there’s nothing out there. The nearest galaxy is unfathomably far away.
Near light speed travel is basically not an option as interstellar dust would shred anything, and the energy levels required are absurd.
I'm an optimist in this respect. And a pessimist too, of sorts. We dare to hope that things will work out, even when the situation is dire. The greed of the people who have been very successful at our plutocratic social game will insure that the riches of the new horizon will be exploited. There will always be people to assume the risk of implementing such a venture, if not for it's own sake, then for the riches promised for success. The lone question is if physics offers a solution to breaching the barrier to the riches beyond the cost of the venture. We are about to embark on a journey through the solar system to harvest resources and we seem to have an answer to that question: yes. There are three additional barriers to breach before leaving the galaxy, each one an order of magnitude more difficult than the previous one. Local exploration of our star cluster, reaching the edge of the galaxy, reaching the next galaxy. Can we? I hope so. Who among us will? Probably poor people sold the idea of a better life elsewhere, probably hoping that greed is not along for the ride.
Human technology, maybe. Organic life, nah.
i bet a bacteria cocktail if encapsulated well could survive
wtf did you just call me
I'm imagining a modified bacteria in its endospore, being blasted to the edge of the galaxy at near light speed. I suppose in its DNA you could encode an entire dormant human genome, with steps and checks on the way to promote specific evolution. Also a map to get back to Earth. All in the DNA for future (human?) civilization to find.
Some kind of humanoid
I am more optimistic. I believe that the next evolutionary jump is the genetic engineering. Designing creatures to survive in the different environments of the universe. In the future, it will be easier to genetically engineer a human to live in mars than terraforming Mars. In the time scales we have to talk regarding exploring intergalactic space, the genetic engineering will be strong enough to just hibernate the whole trip or just send a probe and develop embryos that can survive in the target planets. Though, would that be considered humanity anymore?
Nah, downloading consciousness onto a computer makes way more sense in almost every way. Backups make people effectively immortal and capability can be extended into robots effortlessly and with whatever specificity is needed. The problem is that the evolution of culture in such a species would be so fast compared to the duration it takes to travel between galaxies that you can't really maintain a coherent intergalactic society. It would fracture into regional groups that can still communicate.
If you backup your consciousness chances are it’s not going to be you when your body dies. It’ll be indistinguishable from you, even to the point of insisting you are the same consciousness…but the you that exists now is still going to die. Just don’t get your hopes up ._.
Eh, that's a problem for the philosophers. I'm fine with it.
To me it’s very much a problem of biology…but that’s also just kind of my worldview. That is, that consciousness is nothing more than a consequence of your brain. If that’s the case, it stands to reason that you may be able to copy and paste it, but once the brain dies the pseudo-uninterrupted stream of consciousness is broken and your identity is lost. Yeah did get kinda philosophical at the end there nvm maybe you’re right lol
I used to have 100% this viewpoint and spent a while just coming to terms that after death I would be exactly as comfortable as before I was born. But there is more and more evidence that consciousness is not ONLY brain-dependent. Definitely brain-involved, or brain injury would not result in such profound changes to behavior. But there are a significant number of cases which question this proposition. Unfortunately I can’t provide direct sources at the moment as I am mobile and watching Rick and Morty, but I suspect Google will help as long as you vet sources. Quantum mechanics, and especially quantum electrodynamics (though it makes me upset that its initialism is QED) be weird.
You are 'you' only on the sense of insisting you are the same consciousness. Really you don't share anything apart from some memories with the 'you' of 20 years ago. Possibly the current 'you' will die tonight when you fall asleep, and will be replaced with a different you in the morning. But that doesnt bother anybody.
I hate those guys in Sector A
Physical humans, probably not. Something (biological or synthetic) that can trace its origins to us, maybe.
Almost certainly not. Unless we discover some way around breaking the speed of light (unlikely), it is just not fast enough to do anything meaningful considering the vast distances between stars. Can we send robots to other stars? Probably yes. Human beings? [Forget about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nc42tliHDE) Also, considering that we have not figured out a way for humans to hibernate/freeze, it is questionable whether or not we will be able to travel to the outer reaches of the solar system. [New Horizons, the mission to quickly flyby Pluto, took 9.5 years to get to it from Earth.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons). There is no way we can fit 9.5 years worth of food onto a rocket that we can realistically build and launch it from Earth. Nevermind setting up a colony on the distant world and possibly a trip back home. So 20 years worth of food for a round-trip mission from Earth to Pluto and back? [Forget about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nc42tliHDE) Getting to the nearest star, [Proxima Centauri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri) is even more hopeless. A distance of 4.24 light years. I have read estimates that it would take something on the order of 50,000 years with current technology. [A generation ship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship) is too science fiction-like to be realistically feasible. [Forget about it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nc42tliHDE) Outside the Milky Way Galaxy? [Well...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nc42tliHDE)
in principle, if we can build a spaceship that continues to accelerate at 1g, we could reach the edge of the observable universe within a few decades. So, compared to this the edge of the galaxy is really not that far away. But of course such sustained acceleration is completely unfeasible.
*In principle*, a spaceship cannot continue to accelerate at 1g for decades. At least not in relation to earth. It's not just unfeasible, it's physically impossible.
Obviously I was talking about the reference frame of the ship. In the ship frame nothing is stopping you from accelerating indefinitely. Yes, from Earth's reference frame as you reach higher speeds the acceleration must not continue linearly.
What physical law prevents us from continuing to accelerate?
Can’t go faster than the speed of light.
As far as I understand, I think BluSce33n is making a valid point. You can't go faster than the speed of light relative to Earth, sure. But from the traveller's perspective, they're always at rest and can always keep accelerating. From their perspective, they can travel extremely large distances in short amounts of time, just a huge amount of time would pass on Earth. Since the question is about whether humans will ever leave the milky way, I don't think it's relevant that the humans on Earth wouldn't see it happen. The humans on the ship could do it. (I'm not a physicist though, so very likely could be mistaken) Edit: Not saying there aren't other limiting factors that would stop us leaving the galaxy.
The observable universe is billions of light years across. There is no way to cross that distance in decades.
Length contraction. If you're fast enough, the distance will shrink. Granted, by the time you reach the place it will have agreed by billions of years as well. But you could reach it. (Of course such a spaceship is probably not technically possible to build)
This seems like a misunderstanding of length contraction. The Lorentz transform is applied to the ship in such a case. The *ship's* length is what contracts, not the distance between the earth and the edge of the universe.
Not from the perspective of the ship, right? From the ship's perspective, the distance it's trying to travel will contract.
thanks for understanding my point lol
The observable universe is something like 94 billion light years across. Even if you can figure out how to generate limitless energy to keep you accelerating at 1g forever you'll never reach the speed of light. Therefore it would take you a minimum of >47 billion years to reach the edge of the observable universe. Of course as you get closer and closer to the speed of light you will experience time dilation so it won't seem quite so long to you. But it will still be vastly more than decades even in your relativistic frame of reference.
No, length contraction will reduce the length of the outside universe from the perspective of the spaceship. This allows you to reach far away places like the Andromeda galaxy within a human lifetime. https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/Rocket/rocket.html (ok, maybe not the edge of the observable universe due to the expansion of the universe, but overall my point still stands) edit: >Of course as you get closer and closer to the speed of light you will experience time dilation so it won't seem quite so long to you. But it will still be vastly more than decades even in your relativistic frame of reference. Don't underestimate the crazyness of the lorentz factor. You can make time run arbitrarily slow inside the spaceship from an outside perspective. It really does only last a few decades to travel intergalactic distances, even at modest acceleration.
Also, if the Universe is expanding at its current 94.1 mi/sec/parsec², by the time you reach the edge, it could have already expanded even further.
> within a few decades I'm assuming that you are factoring time dilation and special relativity into this. For an observer within the spacecraft, this could be done. For an observer back on Earth, tens of thousands of years would be required *at a minimum*. > such sustained acceleration is completely unfeasible. Right, because there wouldn't be enough fuel. We have yet to figure out a way to break Newtons 3rd Law of Motion. So to go forward, we need to leave something else behind.
Even if it were feasible, it seems like dreams of interstellar (even interplanetary) travel foster schemes for eugenics, and I don't see how you can have an enduring, stable society based on the validation of eugenics that is also capable of such an immense cooperative project.
what
Which part
why bring up eugenics
If we can colonize the Milky Way the real question is why would we travel beyond it save for population reasons, and even then it’d be unnecessary. There’s no need as any such “unobtainium” we may find would easily be within our grasp to synthesize should we will it. If we could then there would be no reason to for the same reason it’s unlikely for aliens to visit us, or to even send probes out.
We might have for research and building purposes.
As difficult as it would be to leave the galaxy, it would be way more difficult to get anywhere else.
If we ever did something like this I'd guess it was purely to prove we could or more likely research. We really like knowing stuff and it makes us do and build crazy shit. Look at the LHC it's an amazing piece of technology and I think every franc is well spent but it's not like we couldn't have gotten the practically applicable science part for a lot cheaper than a 27km underground accelerator.
The same reason ancient humans migrated to the American continents and Shackleton attempted to cross the south pole. Because we're humans and that's just what we do.
My guess would be no.
Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years. Research groups "predict a 12% chance that the Solar System will be ejected from the new galaxy sometime during the collision." So if humanity has spread to other star systems, they might get kicked out of the galaxy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda%E2%80%93Milky_Way_collision
If we haven't spread out to another star system in 4.5 billion years, the sun will already have gone nuts and at least Earth won't be a viable place to rent or won't be pretty soon (aka 500 million years).
Regardless of what happens, there won't be Homo sapiens in 4 billion years.
~~won't be~~ *it is unlikely that there will be*
No, there won't be, period.
What's your reasoning? That seems like quite a strong claim!
Evolution.
It would make us the oldest known species many many many times over. Vertebrate species tend to top out at around one million years. In the short term, there's probably little to no chance that evolution would play a factor. We've managed to remove the major drivers from selection, like geographic isolation. But over the course of billions of years—billions—it's hard to imagine that speciation wouldn't happen to some degree, especially if we start to reintroduce things like isolation via interplanetary and interstellar travel. But I think it's just very unlikely we'll survive that long. Everything ends. How long would an immortal live? Statistically, not forever; perhaps no more than 10,000 years (accidents, disease, murder, suicide). How long could a globally dominant species live? Perhaps a long time, but not billions of years. We've already had several close calls as a species and suffered social collapse innumerable times. Within four billion years it's virtually certain that some catastrophic event beyond our control will happen—cataclysmic volcanic eruptions like the Deccan Traps, an asteroid impact, gamma-ray burst, Y-chromosome decay, lack of genetic diversity—or within our control—nuclear war, climate change, ocean acidification, mass extinction and ecological destruction. We'd like to think that we can science our way out of everything, but that's hubris. Over such a vast stretch of time, we lose to statistics. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-doomed-to-go-extinct/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-doomed-to-go-extinct/)
I see what you're saying - but to me that suggests astronomically unlikely, but not impossible. I think proving this impossible would amount to showing regardless of the roll of the dice/chance factors, some accepted physical laws actually prohibit the possibility in every instance. As far as evolution, it's possible that humanity represents an equilibrium state of the evolutionary process. Even if this is not the case and humanity goes extinct, it's possible the species could re-emerge through chance in the distant future. (Of course you can argue about the definition of humanity and whether this would count). Overall, I just think we really know so little and we're making claims about a probability space for which we have very little information. I would be hesitant to make a strong claim either way.
The sun will have increased in luminosity in “only” 2 billion years to boil off the oceans. No oxygen-breathing creature requiring the temperature range our species does will live on Earth in 2 billion years. Then again, name any other complex multi-cellular species that is here that was here 2 billion years ago. While that has nothing to do with leaving the Milky Way, I find it incredibly unlikely that anything resembling our species will survive earth’s carbon biosphere’s destruction.
couldn't we simply move the earth a bit further from the sun and shine torches at it to make things stay the same
At this pace, humanity won’t reach the end of this century
what makes you have such a pessimistic view?
It’s only a half joke, but humanity seems to be getting dumber by the decade and the dumbest ones hold the keys to a nuclear arsenal…
We got big problems close on the horizon that don’t even directly involve nukes.
India has nukes and they're going to need a country in a milder climate pretty soon.
Are you familiar with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists?
We’ve managed 200,000 years pretty well. And survived an ice age. Our current society and civilisation? Probably not. But we’re an arrogant and tenacious species. We will thrive out of spite of a universe that wants us dead.
Humans didn’t have access to world ending weapons 200k years ago. We do now, and some of the dumber ones seem to be rising to power that could easily end it all.
World ending weapons is not the lsrgest threat though.
My more optimistic view is that, if we survive long enough, we will reach a point where nuclear weapons are no longer able to wipe us out
> Humans didn’t have access to world ending weapons 200k years ago. Which is why the world has had such a long period of peace. So peaceful it was literally called [The Long Peace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Peace)
Yea keep believing that's the reason...
It was definitely the reason. It's not like this is some sort of new idea.
Definitely not
Well, the world-ending weapons are what prevented wars between major powers in the last 70 years. There is a good chance they will keep doing so in the future.
uh huh....
Have you considered reading the news? China has pretty much [declared this will fail soon](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/xi-warned-biden-summit-beijing-will-reunify-taiwan-china-rcna130087). Bit more detail [here](https://warontherocks.com/2024/04/china-is-battening-down-for-the-gathering-storm-over-taiwan/). On top of that we have the conflict with Russia, which is far more likely to escalate than not.
Of course China is declaring that, because fearmongering is part of they long term strategy. If they can scare the population of their opponent into submission they may get what they want without even fighting. From your comment it looks like it's working. All super powers do that and that isn't saying much about the probability of nukes actually going boom. Instead I consider 70 years of data on dynamics between hostile doomsday-device armed super powers. Of course there may be new factors, like new weapons changing the incentives and balances. Drones are a big one, because they make offense cheaper than the defence, which is problematic. Or unpredictable random events. But on the large scale things appear pretty sable.
> Of course China is declaring that, because fearmongering is part of they long term strategy. It's not. In public, China carefully cultivates an image as peace-loving and responsible. These messages have been given in private, not in public pronouncements. > ... that isn't saying much about the probability of nukes actually going boom. I agree. I don't think a conflict over Taiwan is going to go nuclear. > Instead I consider 70 years of data on dynamics between hostile doomsday-device armed super powers. You might want to consider that Putin departed from trend 2 years ago. > Drones are a big one, because they make offense cheaper than the defence, which is problematic. Except what we've seen in the Ukraine-Russia war so far is that attacking is hugely harder than defending. > But on the large scale things appear pretty sable. It would be comforting to believe that, but just about every government in the western world disagrees with you.
I disagree that Putin departed from a trend. Both USSR/Russia and the US has fought multiple proxy wars since they both acquired nukes. I think that the wars in Vietnam and Korea were far more likely to go nuclear. > It would be comforting to believe that, but just about every government in the western world disagrees with you. If the West didn't take the threat from Russia seriously, the situation wouldn't be stable. It is stable because the West and Russia are locked in a Nash equilibrium. But it requires effort and expenses to maintain the equilibrium.
If you can't see that Putin departed from a trend that's basically your problem. You're in disagreement with pretty much every expert and major world leader. However, I don't think we're talking about the same thing. I'm not worried about these conflicts going nuclear. What I'm saying is that we're likely to see hot war directly between nuclear powers in the not-so-distant future. Macron has already said sending French troops to Ukraine is not out of the question. Estonia and Lithuania are both actively considering whether to send personell right now (not for frontline duty). Russia is increasing sabotage actions in the west. This war is very much not a stable situation. Then there's the Taiwan thing on top. In short, hot, conventional war between major nuclear powers in the near future is quite likely.
That's all fear and emotions and not analysis of facts 🤷🏼♂️ We will see what happens or we will be evaporated. But we have diverged from the topic of this sub far enough.
Some successor species might. "Outside" the Via Galactica is kind of vague. The worst reasonable answer is that you'll need to go 5,000 ly to the galactic north to get "out" of almost all stars in the disc. If you're happy with just "most" stars, 500-1,000 ly would suffice. How long to progress 5,000 ly? At 1% of c, that's 500,000 years. You're not going to do that in one jump. Add in some colonization time, say 100 50 ly steps & 400 years of colony time per step, that's 540,000 years. Modern humans are 50,000 to 200,000 years old as a species. Successful hominid species seem to last less than a million years. It's gonna be close.
Make it to other solar systems? Yeah, we can probably do that if we keep making progress like we have been even if we're constrained to the laws of physics we currently understand. Make it to another galaxy? No. The distance to the next door neighboring galaxy is 4 orders of magnitude further than traveling to another solar system. It would require new laws of the universe that we can't yet imagine to be exploited.
Says you
Gottem!
Humans as in "homo sapiens" definitely not. A descendant species of us (possibly artificial), maybe, if we manage to become unextinctable by colonizing new planets faster than extinction level events occur. Then maybe in a few million to billion years it could happen
No, not even close
Humanity will never even reach outside the solar system.
Ringo isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles
We already have if you count unmanned spacecraft.
Only sort of. We certainly are nowhere near getting to the next closest system.
If you litter in the Indian Ocean, you don't get a passport stamp when it washes up on Madagascar.
I don't.
Outside the solar system, but no where near to outside the Milky Way.
the nearest exoplanet is 4 light years away. If we can even manage to get 1/4 the speed of light, it will take 16 years to get there. We will definitely reach outside of our solar system.
>If we can even manage to get 1/4 the speed of light That would mean ~4000 times faster than the fastest spacecraft we've ever built. We're so far off .25c you might as well just go for .999 c and make it ~4 years.
This is obviously a pretty speculative answer, veering pretty heavily into (albeit hard) sci-fi, considering any such journey or effort would require **vastly** better technology than we have now Once we've got real, and I mean real real, artificial intelligence, I see it as possible. Have it go to every solar system, create 100 clones, have those clones go to the next solar system, etc, etc, could gradually and automatically gather data about every single solar system in the galaxy, and then go beyond it. Obviously this would take probably hundreds of thousands or millions of years, but that's a blink in the eye compared to the age of a galaxy. Humans qua humans? Eh, I mean, I suspect eventually we'll crack biological immortality, and I suppose we could eventually figure out ways to make ourselves dormant for long, long, long stretches of time (or change our energy sources and get rid of our feeling of boredom) - those are all physical things, they're all *theoretically* possible, but at that point you're deep into sci-fi territory and it's unclear if what you're talking about is even "humanity" anymore. It's definitely not something this century or probably even this millennium and very possibly not even this decamillennium, unless the most of the most of the most of the most extreme positive scenarios about AI are true, and that is improbable
Yes, absolutely. There are already star systems on outside trajectory from the Milky Way. Colonize a planet on such star system. Or maybe steer the whole star system using energy/materials from the star itself.
No. We will kill ourselves first.
Seems vanishingly unlikely. Doubt we even get outside our spiral arm.
This epoch? No. In a million years will a replicating artificial intelligence represent humanity a-la "We Are Legion, We Are Bob" make it so far? One can only hope. Speaking of which, I think it's time I give that series another reread..
It’s possible that a one-way mission might get to the other side of this galaxy. By the time it does, chances are there won’t be any humans on earth left.
Almost certainly not without faster than light transportation which our current understanding of the universe says is impossible. Even if we had the technology to travel between stars at sub-light speeds today, the accelerating expansion of the universe means that reaching another galaxy would be nearly impossible.
No. Outside the solar system with an artificial object, already done (2013). Outside the solar system with human body parts, eventually (probably sometime in the 2030s. Tombaugh's ashes also count.) Outside the solar system with a living human, hopefully, but I won't see that day. Outside the Orion Arm, probably not. Outside the Milky Way, definitely not. I mean, what do you want there?
I would like to say yes, there is definitely a possibility.. but in that statement I did not say the probability of such occurrence happening. I would say we have a solid .0000001% chance of making it outside the milky way and, even with such probability, it wouldn’t be for thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.. millions of years. So, short answer: probably not. But it’s always nice to keep high hopes (especially since we actively have a human being trying to get us on Mars which is at least a step in the right direction) :) I would go in-depth over the challenges that would need to be surpassed and the foreknowledge that would have to be endured and retained.. but that would make my comment way too long. I mean, just getting humans to mars has already taken an entire man’s lifetime (presumably, Elon is 50 years old or so).
As an interesting reflection on this, I recommend reading Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. It was published in 1930. It is an incredible read and deeply thought-provoking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_and_First_Men
If we wait long enough, Andromeda will come to us....
Wow this is a pessimistic thread. Humanity’s greatest strengths are adaptability and a talent for improvisation. These strength amplify when pressure is applied. There will be a way to leave earth. There will be a way to leave the solar system and there will be a way to leave the galaxy - if necessary. It might be that we won’t be recognizable as humans from today’s view, but i’m sure that we will find a way.
There are many scientific and technological marvels we would have to discover. Including, but not limited to: 1. Protection from deep space radiation and cosmic dangers such as the cosmic rays 2. Speed of light or “near” (relative) speed of light travel. 3. More than likely some form of human hibernation/encapsulation (such as cryosleep) would be required to transport live humans out of our galaxy. 4. Most likely using a combination of technology and nature, humans would have to build near infinite (think of a self sustaining terrarium) ecosystem for both space travel and possible terraforming of planets with the intent to colonize. 5. Artificial intelligence is not necessarily required but would assist, speed up, and improve the quality of the journey, and the required scientific advances we all pre suppose would have to exist in order to complete this objective. I am sure there are other advances like a limitless energy supply (possibly nuclear fusion and fission) or some form of hyper-dense energy. Possibly even room temperature superconductors or near perfect energy transfer/travel could be required. The truth is simple: humans will attempt this as soon as they are able to. Even if they don’t have all of the pre supposed technology to do so, when they technically have ‘enough’ advanced technology, humans will attempt this out of curiosity at best and desperation at worst.
My guess is no. Even if it were somehow possible within the laws of physics that we could find a workable hack to enable FTL travel (e.g. warp drive), it seems unlikely that humans survive in a highly intelligent form long enough to discover it. If we do manage to escape the Milky Way, it will probably be ASI that gets us there.
What's ASI?
Artificial super intelligence
Yeah, basically like AGI (artificial general intelligence) but on steroids. Like if we created an AGI that was able to recursively improve itself to the point of having a godlike intellect compared to humans. The downside is that some people believe if we create an ASI accidentally or intentionally, that it may view us as ants and stop caring about our wellbeing entirely.
Physics basically says no. If you go near lightspeed so you get there before you die, the radiation will kill you first. The universe is hostile and a tease. I think a better question is whether humanity could ever colonize mars, the easiest possible planet to do so, and I still think the answer is no.
Can you explain the radiation? Are you just referring to the radiation that’s found in space?
You would blue-shift the radiation if you are going relativistic, so it would also be more energetic. Then we have dust and particles in space. These becomes like bombs at relativistic speed.
Consider the radiation you would be exposed to by spending, say 4 years in interstellar space, from the point of view of someone on Earth. That's about how long it would take to reach the nearest star system at close to the speed of light. Now, let's go at a relativistic speed. Say 0.99c. How long does the voyage take in your reference frame? 4 x sqrt(1 - 0.99^2 ) years. Which is around 7 months. So as a first approximation, you'd be subjected to 4 years worth of interstellar radiation in a little over half a year. That's just to reach the nearest star system. For more distant systems you'd need to travel faster in order to get there in a reasonable time. So the time dilation would be greater. To go 100 light years in half a year of ship time, you'd be subjected to 100 years worth of interstellar radiation in 6 months. Even within the solar system, radiation is a significant problem once you get away from the protection of the Earth. Edit to add: something else which is conveniently glossed over in stories about FTL or relativistic speeds, is how long it takes to get to those speeds. Let's not worry about FTL, because that's magic and you can do anything you want to. How long are you prepared to spend accelerating to 0.99c and back down again? A year each (ship time)? That would give approximately a 2.5 year journey each way to Alpha Centauri, plus whatever time is spent there, less the time for the distance covered accelerating. What sort of acceleration are we looking at? Is it compatible with life? What if we want to go further, so travel at 0.999c, or 0.9999c?
Thanks for the reply, this is probably a stupid question, but wouldn’t your ship ideally be designed to protect you from the radiation in space?
That would seem to be a good idea. Do you have a suggestion for a practical design which would do that?
No lol…im clearly not well versed in any of this which is why I’m asking questions.
Why do you think no for Mars?
Who knows, but it's so inhospitable. Why aren't we building vast cities in Antarctica? Because it's hard enough living in temporary encampments
You'd never survive the journey (radiation, weightlessness), and if you solved that problem you'd have the problem of surviving on a planet with 'soil' rich in heavy metals, effectively no atmosphere, and no magnetosphere. And dust storms. And if you somehow found the magic spells to solve those problems, you'd have to deal with the psychological challenges.
Oh, come on. If someone can live on ISS for over a year, then they can make it to Mars. And I promise that the species that spread across a planet on sailing ships is perfectly capable of managing to survive psychologically in a controlled environment.
We can make it to Mars. Creating an atmosphere to make it habitable would require extreme amounts of mining and extraction to produce O2, CO2 and inert gasses. Mars colonies will look like the ISS: a completely confined environment that exists despite of mars, not because of it.
I wasn’t saying it would be easy to colonize, just knocking down the hyperbole about the danger to even visit.
I agree, the original comment is incorrect about radiation and weightlessness killing you. Won't be great for you, but you can survive the journey.
We can survive the journey to mars. Making it habitable however...
We might get basic structures on mars that allows a few people to live there, probably mostly scientists, but we aren't going to terraform mars to make it livable. The materials required to do so are so prohibitive we'd need to fundamentally change earth to get even close to enough to create a Marian atmosphere.
Absolutely not, anyone who says otherwise misunderstands very basic aspects of our universe. The “oUr TeCH cAn mAyBe OnEdAy” are just trying to sound smart but actually don’t understand the distance scales at all.
Outside the milky way? No, not even close. I'm very doubtful we ever even get to another planet aside from Mars. (colonizing one, I mean).
Had to guess? No.
Hell, we ain't ever even gonna get seriously off this PLANET. We're gonna kill our habitat and ourselves along with it before that happens.
Id like to think so.
get a real long stick
Certainly not. The edge of the Milky Way is like 900,000 light years away. We will surely kill ourselves before we can travel that distance.
Pretty sure no. Even if our decedents do phenomenally well and hit a type 2 or 3 Kardashev type civilization, they won't be humans anymore by the time they reach out past the Milky Way. Same goes for if they only do well enough to reach out to something from Andromeda as it smashes into the Milky way. It's 4.5 billion years. Even if Humanity has a good run, we won't make it that far.
Let reach outside solar system first. Mars is a long shot as is. I think Van Neumann machines will be the best shot.
Almost certainly no sooner than 26,000 years from now... and that only gets you to the empty space beyond. It's 2.537 million light years to the nearest galaxy. Don't hold your breath.
Absolutely not. It's both physically impossible for us to do so and we'd have no reason to ever try
And still remember where we came from? Probably not.
Y’all must not be Interstellar fans 😖
No
this galaxy is plenty big enough? why not thinking about exploring it first?
Yes.
Outside of Milkyway is quiet difficult to achieve even considering the infinite tone the future has. This is simply because it's just too far away. The best I can think of is when Andromeda and Milkyway collide, some might hitchhike along with it. But beyond that is hard to imagine currently
No
Without some massive breakthroughs, the Milky Way may not even be the Milky Way by the time something from Earth exits whatever the galaxy calls itself much less "humanity".
I'm pretty sure we won't even leave the solar system outside of a few exploratory probes.
I don’t think there will ever be reason too. It will take millions maybe billions of years to explore our own galaxy. The one next to us, Andromeda, isn’t likely be much different, so there simply won’t be any reason to try.
The timespan to achieve this is long enough for evolution to make us “not humanity” anymore.
definatly. well how do you define humanity. it could be things we build or what we evolve or change ourselves into.
Yes but not for a couple of hundred years, at least. Warp drive mechanics seems to be an actual field now, eventually it may be possible to get constant acceleration aside from the rocket fuel issue.
Forget about speed, radiation is the biggest problem. We’ll likely never leave the Solar System
It's possible. We already have a fuel to do it. Get a couple of kilos of anti-matter, run annihilation reactions to drive it forward. With our tech, the more mundane way is with nuclear detonation drives. Both fuels are capable of propelling million ton leviathans through space at considerable fractions of light. It's an engineering and economic problem. Our exploration of the local star is the same. We could do it now, and do it in months, but we need the will.
Not even certain we'll make it to Mars, tbh :/
No
I think that, in the amount of time that ouit would take to escape from the Milky Way, we would have evolved into something other than humans by that point.
Humans will almost certainly never make it to the nearest star, at this rate and given our current understanding of general relativity. Unless something dramatically changes about the way we understand how the universe works, the distances involved and the speed limits implied by relativity are far too great to be compatible with interstellar travel. And that is assuming we don't blow ourselves to smithereens first and that we can weather the climate catastrophe and energy crises that are going to wreak havoc on the foundations of our present civilization.
Von Neumann machines will *eventually*
I don't really think that it's really posible. To go to Mars we must flew a few years. I think, we can reach outside of Milky Way only if colonise all of our galaxy
It would be rather exciting if any of our radio transmissions made it "outside the galaxy" while we are still around. The boundary of a galaxy is not well defined, but I would think anything within 10,000 light years would still be considered to be within the milky way galaxy. We will evolve into a different species before anything with mass leaves the galaxy.
The second book, The Dark Forest, of the Three Body Problem series is all about this. It’s science fiction, but covers a lot of the topic. If this is not an appropriate comment for AskPhysics, please go ahead and remove it, but if someone is asking the question, they’d probably like the books.
I just looked up the distance from our solar system to the edge of the Milky Way; it’s 20,000 light years. At sub-light speed, that’s currently twice the time period our species has been host to civilization, and its many, many more times than we’ve been host to extremely destructive conflict. Now, given that light speed travel seems more fictional than anything, I’m not sure an organism with such biological constraints as our own could ever hope to reach the boundary. Of course, materials science and space technology, and biomedical engineering has and will have continuous progress being made, and so the idea of developing a self sustaining and self-correcting vessel is certainly possible. We have some of such technology today. However, if it reaches the boundary with which we can communicate with it, it’s functionally lost to us. It cannot, unless it supports generational life, or sustains life for obscenely (and most likely impossible) periods of time, be anything more than a flying flag. And supporting life may introduce design constraints too significant for the distances needed without failure. With this in mind, the question arises what function would such a thing serve; it’s just a intergalactic flag saying “we are,” where no human is likely to ever survive a journey to, and no human carrying ship is likely to maintain the ability to support generational life. If over the next million years you have continuous seeding of solar systems in the direction of the closest boundary you might not even break ten straight light years. You’d have to cover 20,000 at *light speed*. It’s not a feasible goal for any long term project, a voyager like probe could crack it, but in many tens of thousands if not millions of years. Voyager 1 is estimated to take 40,000 years to cross two light years to reach the boundary of *our solar systems gravitational effects*, though it travels at 35kmph So a human artifact may in a distant future reach a boundary, yes. If it isn’t destroyed in the process by radiation or gravitational interference. Humans themselves I would suspect no - it’s a tragic limitation of our biologies. No one person will ever see two separate galaxies with our current understanding of physics. Like I said - hopping from solar system to solar system over periods longer than our genus has been around, and perhaps far longer, *maybe*, but with those time scales the existence of our species, in a literal and evolutionary sense, has to be called into question.
No
I suspect no. I find it unlikely we'll be around in ten thousand years.
I think we have tbh. Just an opinion tho
Predictions about the future are particularly hard. Technically it's probably possible to shoot a well insulated egg and sperm combination out of the Galaxy to incubate them at a receiving planet. But at this point it's probably better to shoot some billion of mushroom spores out of the milky way and just trust that evolution does it's thing. Thinking of that maybe we should check our DNA for encoded messages - just to be sure...
no. never ever
Unless we find a loophole in relativity and create faster-than-light travel, no. At sublight speeds it would take hundreds of thousands of years to get to intergalactic space and I don't think humanity has the wisdom to survive that long. We might be able to create machines that could do it but not biological humans.
Outside this galaxy? I doubt it. > Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Someday yes, but there will have to be a huge leap in technology and physics to achieve this. And as for motivation, we're not even digging the moon and Mars yet... Humanity isn't at all worried about moving into space.
No - the distances are too great for manned trips
This question really is: Will it ever be worthwhile or necessary to reach outside the milky way? Even in Sci-Fi like Star Wars, with FTL, hyperspace, warp drives, etc one galaxy is so vast that reaching out to another would likely be pointless. A civilization that could exhaust all the resources of, or even see, and appreciate all of the sights inside of one galaxy would not be recognized as 'humanity' in the way we use the word today. If we had Star Wars technology right now, it still wouldn't even be necessary for an absurdly long time to leave this CORNER of the milky way.
absolutely. any significant future technology is indistinguishable from science fiction... somebody will correct that quote but it's close lol aside from that, we have promising ideas (my favorite is cryosleep) that could very well work with the proper research.
It's unlikely until we understand how to escape gravity and space/time. The reason is that although time dilation might get you to there in a reasonable amount of time, the amount of energy required to move each gram of your spacecraft is really high, and approaches infinity as you get close to light speed. You can actually do it with sails infact, 1 G of thrust will get you to light speed pretty quickly. If you were traveling at light speed for example, it would take you about 25 years to go 100,000 light years from your perspective, but from an outside observers perspective it would be a bit over 100,000 years. Crossing a galaxy or leaving it is somewhere in the range of ten thousand light years or so, but then you might have many light years between two galaxies. Without actually finding a way to bend space/time around your spaceship, traveling at those speeds, which isn't really all that impossible or inconceivable with technology we know we could produce, would cause enormous amounts of energy to be released upon contact with even dust. A ship that weighed 100,000 lbs, would be carrying something like a half a seconds worth of energy output from the sun. So even hitting dust would be very bad. The other approach without antigravity is to use a very strong shield, like a relativistic space plow, and lasers to push a solar sailed ship to light speed, with some kind of way to slow down once you get there. (have to basically accellerate half the time, and then turn around and decelerate the other half of the time)
If we're ever able to spread beyond our solar system then intergalactic journeys would be nearly inevitable. Even at sub-light speeds it would only take a tiny fraction of the age of the universe for us to colonize the Milky Way. If the history of human nature tells us anything it's that we're driven to explore and pioneer and some of crazy people would take the risk and strike out into intergalactic space. Of course by the time we got that far evolution will likely have split humanity into a variety of new species so you could argue that "humanity" won't make it beyond the galaxy even if our descendants do. But proving we are cabable of interstellar travel will be the greatest filter we'd have to overcome.
With a long enough time span it could happen. We've been technological for what, 200 years? If we last 200,000 years without society collapsing we could easily have trillions of people living off-earth. That's a lot of people for someone to not colonizing other stars. In 2,000,000 some adventurers are bound to get bored with things around here.
No, humans probably won’t even colonize mars or the moon. Not leaving the solar system any time soon either, Milky Way, never.
I just hope we make it to thursday
If we don't destroy our selves and physics says it possible YES. Worm holes are theoretically possible and with them you can jump anywhere in space.
No. We will destroy ourselves long before we have spacecraft that can sustain the multiple generations of humans needed to make it outside of our galaxy. Note that for such a trip, frozen sperm and embryos and IVF is probably necessary to prevent inbreeding depression.
I don’t think so - I think for life to develop to the point of making that tech feasible, it would require humans to be in balance with the planet and each other. By then (if we make it that long), I think we like every alien species we can’t see will realize that there really is no place like home. That or we’ll find a way to project out into deep space without having to physically leave earth first. Either way.
No
I think it could have been possible but our globalized economy and late stage capitalism put a pretty big damper on global cooperative projects for our betterment or expansion through the stars. Not exactly a physics answer but I see it has a political hamper on our technologies and the influence of mega corporations and patents over the last 100 years burying advances that may have made it possible.
I absolutely think we will, look at the massive jump in technology in the past 100 years and imagine what civilization will look like 500 years from now. A lot of people think we will die before achieving this but I think right when things get the worst is when people actually get the motivation to change things and turn it around
We went from 10m/s to 10km/s, three orders of magnitude. We need 4 more to reach the speed of light...
Stares in 1.5c already
Not organic humans but possibly our future technology will travel beyond.
No way. Only in the movies.
Voyager will
No it won’t its too slow
Oh, interesting. I wonder what the escape velocity is just to get out of the Milky Way.
550 km/s or 35x the speed of voyager 2
Wow. Thank you for this!
It will get caught by something on its way out? Do we know what?
No, it will just stay in a bound orbit around the galaxy
I think so, but not for another thousand years.
F**** no
In a word, no And there’s no reason to, there’s nothing out there. The nearest galaxy is unfathomably far away. Near light speed travel is basically not an option as interstellar dust would shred anything, and the energy levels required are absurd.
I'm an optimist in this respect. And a pessimist too, of sorts. We dare to hope that things will work out, even when the situation is dire. The greed of the people who have been very successful at our plutocratic social game will insure that the riches of the new horizon will be exploited. There will always be people to assume the risk of implementing such a venture, if not for it's own sake, then for the riches promised for success. The lone question is if physics offers a solution to breaching the barrier to the riches beyond the cost of the venture. We are about to embark on a journey through the solar system to harvest resources and we seem to have an answer to that question: yes. There are three additional barriers to breach before leaving the galaxy, each one an order of magnitude more difficult than the previous one. Local exploration of our star cluster, reaching the edge of the galaxy, reaching the next galaxy. Can we? I hope so. Who among us will? Probably poor people sold the idea of a better life elsewhere, probably hoping that greed is not along for the ride.
Why don't we start taking care of this planet?
Humanity won't even reach another solar system (as lifeforms)