Light

Speed of light

  • Light in an optical cable will travel at a speed of ~200,000km/s (66% speed of light in a vacuum)
    • Put another way, it takes 5ms to travel 1,000km

Light travels in every direction from its source in what is known as a light cone

  • a light cone exists in a single moment in space and time

The Discovery space shuttle is capable of travelling at speeds of 5 miles per second. Even at this speed it would still take 37,200 years to travel 1 light year.

1 light year is ~9.46 trillion kilometers