Nothing is as exciting as the truth!!!

[foofighter]

Hello everyone. i haven't posted here in a few months. as many of you may remember, i often asked questions of speculative pseudo-science based on my penchant for science fiction. however, i am happy to announce that i recently began reading textbooks on true science, and, as several of you had told me earlier, i would find reality a lot more interesting than warp speed and teleportation - which i do. it is liberating to learn true science, and to be unplugged from the fantasy that is called sci-fi - almost as liberating as when one realizes the truth of Natural History as opposed to what is listed in Genesis.

 

anyway, now that the good news of my awakening to reality is over, i actually do have an astronomy related question. = )

 

lets say we take a trip travelling close to light speed to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Granted all stars in the Galactic Disk orbit the bulge of the Milky Way - however - how much change is there in the position of our sun relative to nearby stars as everything orbits the galaxy's center? i ask this because we are seeing Proxima Centauri as it was 4 years ago - so if we aim at the pinprick of light in the sky as we see it at launch time, we will probably arrive way off course. assuming we had the technology to get there, how would we know how to arrive on course and what would we have to plug into the computer from the get-go?

 

thanks

[YT2095]

the Principal is really quite simple.

since it`s path has been plotted for some time now, a predictable model is made, then you simply plot where it Will be when you factor the length of time it will take you to get there.

 

basically you`de take the distance of 4 light years, and divide it by your average speed, that figure will say how long it will take to get there.

 

that number is then plugged into you path model (where it will be after this travel time) and then you will know what direction to head in to get there.

 

you`ll also find that it doesn`t actually move all that much, it just Looks like it does because we have Seasons here on Earth.

 

so Predictive modeling is what you use, a bit like leading your target when you go skeet shooting, you always aim in Front of the target, that way when your lead shot gets there (it`s not instant!) the skeet has caught up and SMACK, you hit it

[foofighter]

interesting - thanks for the info = )