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+--- Thread: Quora question about intergalactic travel (/showthread.php?tid=4122)
Quora question about intergalactic travel - person43 - 04-24-2019
It's a question about what the limits of intergalactic travel may be. The answer says the furthest objects we could travel to are currently about eight billion light years away. What do you guys think about this, does it sound right?
RE: Quora question about intergalactic travel - stevebowers - 04-24-2019
Do you have a link to this article?
There are very real limits to the volume of the galaxy which is within our reach, because of the expansion of the universe. After a certain amount of time, the most distant galaxies will expand so far away from us that they will pass beyond our event horizon; this effect will get closer and closer to Earth until we can only reach the gravitationally-bound galaxies of the Local Group.
Unfortunately I can't remember the exact figures for any of this.
RE: Quora question about intergalactic travel - Drashner1 - 04-24-2019
The link was there, it just wasn't obvious. I've added an underline.
Looking at the response that is on Quora, it's actually saying that the galaxy would be about 8 billion ly away 'now' but would be much further away by the time you got there.
The expansion of the universe appearing faster the farther away you look is real, and the rate known (68 kilometers per second per megaparsec). See HERE. Eventually, from the Earth's frame of reference, distant galaxies appear to be moving away at FTL speeds. But I don't know that that means that we could never catch up to them in a ship. The FOR is from Earth and relates to General Relativity, not from the FOR of the ship and Special Relativity would eventually kick in when the ship got close enough. The ship itself would potentially start to appear as if it were moving FTL as it got further away as well, although I'm not sure on that.
Essentially, I don't think that the galaxy receding out of our observable universe as viewed from Earth is the same as that galaxy ceasing to be accessible to travelers who are sufficiently capable of intergalactic travel. Rather the galaxy would eventually seem to recede away at FTL and possibly the ship would as well.
My 2c worth,
Todd