Star Wars: What Would Hyperspace Travel Really Look Like?

In the films, spacecraft are equipped with hyperdrives which allow them to approach the speed of light. As the hyperdrive is engaged, every star in the sky is seen to stretch before the characters' eyes as the ship speeds through the galaxy:



In fact, that wouldn't be the case; here's how Hyperspace really would look like:

The sight of the Millennium Falcon making the "jump to lightspeed" is one of the most iconic images from the Star Wars trilogy. But University of Leicester students have calculated that -- in reality -- Han, Luke and Leia would not see the light from stars stretching past the ship as we are shown in the movies...

Disappointing, Heh!?

There would be no sign of stars because of the Doppler effect -- the same effect which causes the siren of an ambulance to become higher in pitch as it comes towards you.

Doppler blue shift is a phenomenon caused by a source of electromagnetic radiation -- including visible light -- moving towards an observer.

The effect means that the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation will be shortened.

From the Millennium Falcon crew's point of view, the wavelength of the light from stars will decrease and 'shift' out of the visible spectrum into the X-ray range.

They would simply see a central disc of bright light as Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is shifted into the visible spectrum.

Source

It is pretty disappointing, but if i was going at those sort of speeds pretty sure my eyes wouldn't be open Lol.

only light can travel at or past light speed. not matter, so our primitave race will never know im afraid.

The third picture That`s kind of how i imagined that it would look except that i don`t think that there would be any one spot brighter than any other spot. I think that it would be a uniform soft white glow.

reply to post by elevenaugust


You got a source link mate? I wouldn't mind knowing how this image was created ie how they figured it out.

Edit: whoops never mind, you edited at the same time I posted

reply to post by elevenaugust




I imagine it like the wormhole the warp drive imbalance opens up in Starttrek the motion picture. Which bthe way is cooler than starwars hyper space. Lets face it startrek beats starwars and therefore the thread should be renamed with startrek not the childish starwars.

Wrong.

I'm pretty sure I know what it feels like living in Canada.

Maybe I'm just dull, but for some reason, the actual way Hyperspace would look in reality is more intriguing to me than the fantasy version. The real life version just seems to have a sense of being between worlds and dimension--like you're in the purgatory of space-time, so to speak. Anyway, fascinating.

-TheGhoster

reply to post by elevenaugust


Interesting...

I would like to thin that if humans could build something like a hyperdrive they would develop the computer software to take the light "blob" and replace it with what we see in the movies..

I would rather look at something artifical than a blob...

just my 2 cents...

Originally posted by Xcathdra
reply to post by elevenaugust

 

Interesting...

I would like to thin that if humans could build something like a hyperdrive they would develop the computer software to take the light "blob" and replace it with what we see in the movies..

I would rather look at something artifical than a blob...

just my 2 cents...

i'm giving your 2 cents a thumb down. That is just soo (and i can't bother linking images) the blond guy from dawson's creek and his meme about first world problems. In fact (having thought about it for 2 min) i think hypertravel was positively achieved some time ago but because of people like you - scientists are trying to virtually advance the appearance of the blob - before announcing the breakthrough.

Geez,

and i agree with the poster above, Startrek is better than Starwars. A lot better.

reply to post by AthlonSavage


Totally with you!

I have a uniform someplace.

Anywho...the warp engines in Star Trek are much more realistic than "hyperdrive" in Star Wars. The Enterprise uses a matter/anti-matter reaction to generate a "warp field" or "warp bubble" to bend/distort space-time around the ship.

I think good old 'Gene knew some stuff

Originally posted by Exitt

and i agree with the poster above, Startrek is better than Starwars. A lot better.

Meh, I bet an Asgard mothership would run rings around the Enterprise or a Star Destroyer

Or the Firefly-class ship "Serenity" with a Reaver armada in tow....

This is what I think it would look like.

reply to post by Kryties


True, an O'Neal class Asgard ship with it's beam weapon probably could take out the Enterprise-E. Having said that though, a Husnock ship could probably take out just about anything.

I need to restrain in inner sci-fi nerdness now...

Originally posted by SecludedGamer
only light can travel at or past light speed. not matter, so our primitave race will never know im afraid.

blanket statements liek this are just asking to be proven wrong...

www.abc.net.au...

you know they once said travelling on the new fangled trains would be devastating because humans werent meant to travel at those speeds...

Originally posted by AthlonSavage
reply to post by elevenaugust

 

I imagine it like the wormhole the warp drive imbalance opens up in Starttrek the motion picture. Which bthe way is cooler than starwars hyper space. Lets face it startrek beats starwars and therefore the thread should be renamed with startrek not the childish starwars.

edit on 17-1-2013 by AthlonSavage because: (no reason given)

Were you wearing you Starfleet uniform as you typed that

reply to post by elevenaugust


I think its obvious that it would not look like star wars the reason I say that is the distance between stars is light years so you would have to be traveling at many thousands of times the speed of light to see a constant stream of stars flying past!

reply to post by elevenaugust


Well, if we're nerding out... sci-fi author Larry Niven's hyperspace "blind spot" (where widows seem to disappear because our brains cannot process higher dimensional space) seems a good guess at ...um, "reality".

Special Relativity says when you travel at the speed of light, the length of the universe in the direction of your travel becomes zero, and your own time freezes still. This effectively means that for the traveller the tip will be instant (not counting the acceleration and deceleration to light speed).