Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
Topics: NASA, International Space Station, Space, Science
Britt Jones
Topics: NASA, International Space Station, Space, Science
If you have ever wanted to be the first person to travel to the future, tough luck- according to scientists, some people have already achieved it.
We all sat and watched Back to The Future as kids and wanted to be like Marty McFly, but little did we know that some people would go on to do exactly that. And while it’s not as cool as with Doc and a futuristic car speeding before popping into another timeline, scientists think time travel does in fact exist.
It’s been something that everyone has wanted to be developed, and it’s a shock to many that we’ve already been able to come up with a way to do that.
Now, you’re probably thinking that if time travel was real, then people would be all over this, and the news would be buzzing.
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But it’s slightly different to the invention of a time machine. It’s all about moving through space and time.
According to science, time travel is based on Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which he published in 1905.
The German scientist stated within his work that time moves relative to the observer, and this means that on Earth, we move through time at the same pace.
But, if someone moves faster, they will travel through time at a quicker rate.
So, if we bring space travel into the equation, we’ve essentially already reached time travel, as astronauts who are orbiting at 17,500 mph will experience traveling forward in time faster than those on Earth.
This could also explain why NASA astronauts age slower than those on our green planet.
For example, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams recently came back to Earth after a nine-and-a-half-month stint at the International Space Station, and as they were moving faster than us back home, wouldn’t it feel like they’ve spent less time up there than if they had been down here with us?
Because of this feat, they’d be considered time travellers.
Those who are in space ‘are spending more of their budget on speed than us and so have less to spend on time’, said the BBC, which means they age more slowly.
Twins Mark and Scott Kelly have also experienced this crazy effect, known as time dilation.
Both brothers are astronauts and have each been to the ISS, but Scott spent much longer. Around ten times longer in space to be exact.
However, even though Mark was born six minutes before Scott, he is now six minutes and 5 milliseconds older as Scott aged slower while travelling around the Earth.
It’s so crazy that this anomaly has even been researched and documented in NASA's Twins Study.
If you’re still confused: People age slower the closer they get to traveling at the speed of light compared to those who travel further away from the speed of light.
It’s confusing, it’s strange…but it’s also science, and that means that it’s never going to make complete sense to us mere mortals.