40 light years how long to travel

Atmospheric braking at the other end would be tricky. Add a comment. Latoya84 Latoya84 1. John Adams John Adams 1. Added to that, your math is just incredibly wrong. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Linked Related Nine weeks later, the Wright Brothers made history. While the TRAPPIST-1 discovery is deeply exciting, both because of its proximity and because it raises the possibility that life could exist in star systems we previously thought uninhabitable, getting ourselves or our spacecraft there is an immense challenge.

But humanity has proven itself capable of meeting seemingly insurmountable challenges. Nine weeks later, the Wright Brothers made history at Kitty Hawk. Decades later, breaking the sound barrier in flight—at least, not without killing the pilot—seemed impossible. But in , Chuck Yeager did just that. In , John F. In our galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars, this pushes the number of planets potentially into the trillions. Many of these are small, rocky worlds that might be at the right temperature for liquid water to pool on their surfaces.

The nearest-known exoplanet is a small, probably rocky planet orbiting Proxima Centauri — the next star over from Earth. A little more than four light-years away, or 24 trillion miles. If an airline offered a flight there by jet, it would take 5 million years.

Not much is known about this world; its close orbit and the periodic flaring of its star lower its chances of being habitable. And computer modeling shows some have a good chance of being watery — or icy — worlds. In the next few years, we might learn whether they have atmospheres or oceans, or even signs of habitability. Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering space. Original article on Space. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community space.

Hanneke Weitering is an editor at Space. Hanneke joined the Space.