Five... Runners take their positions. Four... On the tracks are 10 fastest objects created
by humans. Three... Fans are worried, complete silence at the stadium! Two... Who will be
the winner? One...The fastest human-made object ever built? GO!
In 10th place, we have a missile... or rather, Air Force Hypersonic Rocket Sled. This is
a special mechanism on rails with a rocket engine created to test rockets and other space
objects. Its top speed is just shy of 6,600 mph. This rocket sled is so fast that you
won’t see it if you blink. A 10-miles-long test track, the longest of its kind, was built
specifically for this sled.
Far ahead, the NASA X-43A (or Hyper-X) unmanned supersonic flying vehicle is in 9th place.
This "bird" flies at a speed of 6,800 mph, which is 8.2 times the speed of sound. However,
it lags behind its closest rival by almost 2.5 times.
8th place is shared between two “sisters” — space shuttles "Columbia" and “Discovery.”
By the way, “Columbia” was the first successful reusable ship in the history of space exploration.
To stay in the orbit, these shuttles had to reach a speed of 17,500 mph. By the way, this
necessary speed for stable orbiting applies to all shuttles. At this speed, the crew could
watch the sunrise every 45 minutes. Both shuttles successfully completed more than 50 space
missions.
And we rise higher and higher from the Earth. And what do we see here? This participant
is confidently taking the 7th place. This is Apollo 10, the spacecraft that NASA used
for rehearsal of Moon landing. When returning to the Earth from the lunar orbit in 1969,
gravity accelerated Apollo 10 to a velocity of nearly 25,000 mph at the altitude of 400,000
feet. The Guinness World Records states that Apollo 10 holds the record for the fastest
a human has ever traveled. However, the Apollo 10 mission report states the maximum speed
at entry was 24,816 mph.
In 6th place, far in outer space, the Stardust space probe flies. In 1999, NASA sent this
probe to collect samples from the comet Wild 2. And it brought these samples to Earth already
in 2006. In space, it developed its maximum speed of 28,860 mph. 7 years is not so bad
for a delivery service, given that the probe flew 2.8 billion miles. It's like a round-trip
from the Earth to the Sun 14 times.
Now we're near the dwarf planet Pluto (yes, recently this "baby" was excluded from the
list of planets of the Solar System), around which NASA's "New Horizons" automatic interplanetary
station flies, ranking 5th on our list. It’s not even a ship, but a station, which during
its mission has developed a maximum speed of 36,400 mph. In 2006, NASA sent "New Horizons"
to study Pluto, and for 13 years this poor station was just flying and studying the lonely
and cold dwarf planet. But in January 2019, it flew to study the nearest asteroid, which,
according to conspiracy theories, was a real UFO. But that’s another story.
The 4th place goes to "Voyager 1". This spacecraft was launched to study the further part of
the solar system back in 1977. And in 2013, it entered the interstellar space. At a speed
of 38,000 mph, "Voyager-1" covers a distance of about 335 million miles each year. In 2020,
it will reach nearly 14 billion miles from us, which makes it the most distant object
from the Earth made by humans. It plans to complete its mission in 2025. Although "Voyager
1" is not the champion of our race, it can rightfully be considered the most enduring
participant.
3rd place goes to the Galileo spacecraft, engineered and launched by NASA in 1989 to
study the atmosphere of Jupiter. Galileo's 14-year mission ended in 2003 when the spacecraft
was deliberately sent into Jupiter's atmosphere. Before crashing, it managed to develop a speed
of 108,000 mph. At that speed, one could drive around the Earth at the equator in 14 minutes
(assuming there were bridges across all the oceans) or to the Moon and back in only 5
hours!
The second place is shared between two space probes, "Helios-1" and "Helios-2." Go figure.
The first developed a speed of 147,900 mph, and the second — 153,500 mph. Both devices
were launched in the 70s by NASA and are currently in the Sun’s orbit. Both sent information
about solar dust, solar storms, plasma, and other "hot stuff" to Earth.
And the champion of our competition is Parker Solar Probe. Like Helios, it studies the Sun,
but it flies at an incredible speed of 213,200 mph! In October 2018, it set the record at
a close distance to the Sun. With each lap in its orbit, the Parker accelerates and is
estimated to reach the speed of 430,000 mph by 2024! In general, as you understand, the
closer to the stars, the faster!
Okay let’s lose the track announcer guy for now. (See you next time!) Yeah, yeah,
yeah…
Since we found ourselves in the vast expanses of space, it seems a good idea to learn what
the fastest object in the Universe is, and then you will find out all about the speed
that cannot be overcome.
In 2014, astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics recorded the highest
speed in the universe. And no, this is not a UFO, but a piece of plasma that flew out
of a black hole. According to the calculations, this plasma moves in a spiral and forms a
cone at a speed of nearly 6,000,000 mph! Fortunately, this incredible force flies far from us, in
another galaxy 50 million light-years away.
And one light-year is... I won't bore you with a huge number of zeros: simply put, the
distance you cover within 1 year at the speed of light is 1 light-year. And the speed of
light is about 186,000 miles per second, (you do the math), and this is the speed limit
for everything in the Universe. And what is most interesting, no object that has mass
according to the laws of physics can move at such a speed. Particles of light, or photons,
do not have mass, so they are the only things that can. Photons only need 8 minutes and
20 seconds to reach our planet from the Sun.
But let's imagine hmm?, that humanity someday creates a ship that can accelerate to the
speed of light. Believe me, this will be the most incredible experience of mankind. I invite
you onboard…
We start the engines, are you ready? We pick up speed, achieve the speed of light and...
The ship falls to pieces in a couple of seconds. The fact is that at such a speed, even several
hydrogen atoms will crash with such force that it would form a dose of radiation tens
of thousands of times stronger than a person can withstand. A ship armor which could withstand
such a strong impact of radiation hasn’t yet been invented. Okay, attempt number two...
Now our ship is equipped with a force field and nothing can destroy it. Here we are gaining
speed again. We reach the light limit and overcome it by just four thousandths of a
mile per second. At this moment, something unbelievable happens. The law of cause and
effect is violated. First goes the cause, and then the effect. In simple terms, this
means that you should first become hungry and then eat a burger. It can't be that you
eat a burger, and then you get hungry. But on our ship, it can.
Imagine that having overcome the speed of light, we are catching up with the photons
that our Sun let out 8 minutes ago. Our speed increases and we outrace the photons from
yesterday. Then a week ago, then a month, then a year. In fact, we are flying through
the passage of time, into the past! When we approach the speed of light, time on our ship
slows down, and when we overcome it, time goes back. But this is not even the worst.
According to the theory of relativity, the faster the speed, the more the mass of the
object increases and its size decreases. Our ship will be infinitely heavy and infinitely
small. Do you know what happens when any object begins to endlessly become heavy? Ding Ding!
Black hole. A huge black hole will begin to absorb everything around and increase infinitely.
It doesn’t sound very good, but we just wanted to fly. Even if humanity invents a
way to travel at such speeds, we won't need it. We will learn to overcome space rather
with the help of portals – “rabbit holes”, thanks to which we can find ourselves anywhere
in the universe in a split second. Blows my mind. How about you?
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