Travelling Across the Solar System at the Speed of Light

By Anupum Pant

The ultimate universal speed limit is the speed of light. No information travels faster than that, or that is what we’ve always known. So, the point is, it is pretty darn fast. But that ultimate speed in the massiveness of our cosmos can seem pretty darn tiny. It’s hard to visualize how big things are in our universe.

Ignoring a few laws of physics, on what the photon actually sees considering relativity, Alphonse Swinehart created an animation which takes you on a journey across the solar system as if you were sitting on a photon. See how at around 8 minutes 20 seconds you reach the earth, taking exactly the amount of time the sunlight takes to reach us.  While watching it please note that it was intentional  that the alignment of planets and asteroids in the video were not kept realistic. That’s artistic freedom…

The video ends at Jupiter because the artist wanted to keep the length of it less than 1 hour. Anyway, the video does deliver its purpose and does it with great artistry.

Riding Light from Alphonse Swinehart on Vimeo.

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