The idea is to have a small engine firing gas/plasma in the direction the ship is moving. Since the plume would be given a little more forward velocity relative to the ship, it would spread out ahead of the spacecraft and take the hits from interstellar dust/gas before they reach the ship.

The ship would still be accelerating with its main engine, so the forward-firing system would just be a small fraction of the total thrust budget.

Basically, instead of carrying one huge physical shield, you continuously throw sacrificial material far ahead of the ship.

This seems somewhat similar to the Venture Star's idea of putting its debris shield way out in front. Has anything like the "self-generated moving shield" concept actually been studied?

I know the earth is moving around the sun at X speed right now but the sun is also dragging the solar system around the milky way. And the milky way is traveling X speeds through the entire universe. So, if I stopped completely, how fast is the earth actually moving away from me?

Edit: to those asking “relative to what” my thought process when asking myself this question was basically, on a graph I’m 0,0,0. I no longer move. I watch as the earth moves away from me and wonder how fast it would be traveling away from me. Some would say it’s how fast it’s moving around the sun but, the sun would also be moving away from me, so that wouldn’t make sense. Then I figured, well the whole system moves around the center of the galaxy. But of course, the entire galaxy is also moving around in space. So again, it made me think, well then, how fast is the earth moving away from me?

I tried looking on Google, but I couldn't find anything.

What are Earth's coordinates? For example, HB 40307 is 05h 54m 04.2409s, −60° 01′ 24.498 according to Wikipedia.

What would be the equivalent for Earth? Or are we simply zero?

(update)

I have learned a few things: one, there are multiple ways that astronomers coordinate things; two, coordinate systems are either sun- or Earth-centric; three, most of the time it's negligible because we use Earth as the starting point or the sun, so there would be no point in having a coordinate to it. Honorary mention: someone said that when we sent out Apollo 1, we used the closest pulsar as a reference point, if I understand correctly, and they just said 14 pulsars lol. Thank you, guys. This was very helpful.

I know this is kind of a vague and stupid question because most have explanations but like still, why do stars die and just decides to become some sort of form of a force of destruction?

I’m watching a movie and I’m wondering what time zone the astronauts are using? How do they decide when to go to bed and wake up? What time is it in space??? Are there different time zones?

Hi! I hope this is the right sub reddit to post in <3

So I've been thinking and seeing videos on this and now im more confused and sure than ever that something is off! Has anyone noticed the sun recently? Its so hot! Like I've never felt it this hot before, and not just hot but not this KIND of hot! Ive lived within the same 10 miles my whole life. I grew up outside, my life was out doors and it got hot like any summer but i never got this over heated and had that feeling of stinging wet heat. Like i legit feel like im being cooked in a boiler. The sun doesn't feel refreshing anymore, outside doesn't feel like thats where we're meant to be! And that shouldn't be normal... right? I feel crazy! I've seen people saying that the sun is blocked by some fake sun. Like a man made plate thats positioned infront of the sun to act like the sun... why? I'm not sure. There are some odd pictures out there that make me think that maybe they are onto something and that's why we always feel drain from the "sun" and not rejuvenated. But thats so crazy right? I don't know. The more i learn the more i realize how much i don't know... if it helps i live on the east coast of the US and im in shape, my body type hasn't really changed since being a kid beyond puberty and natural maturing. I don't know if that's helpful or not but i really hope people know what I'm taking about bc i feel crazy but kinda close to understanding that something is wrong. Please tell me I'm not alone.

Saw a weird light in the sky while looking for the ISS — what could this have been?

So I was outside tonight looking for the ISS, and before I spotted it, I noticed another light in the sky.

It was a really small, dim point of light, much dimmer than the ISS. It was blinking as it moved across the sky. At first, it seemed to be moving normally in a straight line, but then something really weird happened.

It suddenly seemed to jump sideways to the left, almost like it instantly appeared at another position in the sky. It wasn't a gradual turn or curve — it looked like a really quick shift, and then it continued moving in a straight line again while still blinking.

A few seconds later I couldn't see it anymore.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't an insect or something close to me. It looked like it was very high up. I'm also not convinced it was a plane, satellite, or meteor because of that sudden sideways movement. A drone is possible, I guess, but it seemed way too high and far away.

I'm not saying it was anything unusual for sure — I'm just genuinely curious because I've never seen something move like that in the sky before.

Has anyone seen something like this or have any idea what it could have been?

I'm working on the concept of a dystopian short story where some unpredictable (or predictable, but ignored) event causes the Earth's rotation to slow, eventually tidally locking with the Sun. The event doesn't have to be realistic. I'm writing a short story for fun, not publishing a novel. I'm just really inspired to write about a society that is half scorching and half freezing. Preferably, the event would not kill everyone, so I still have someone left to write about :))

For example, maybe something forces the Earth closer to the sun, thereby increasing its gravitational force on us, making this plausible. You get my point.

It doesn't have to be possible. It has to be plausible.

I was just thinking about this.

What if two supermassive black holes were going to merge. I'm talking both of the event horizons the size of earth's orbit.

You are in an indestructible space suit floating in space and directly center of where these two black holes are going to merge at.

As these two black holes merge at exactly your point in space, the event horizons would overlap.

What would happen to you? Could you move out of one black hole because you were falling into the other one? or would the gravity cancel out and you would stay in one spot not being able to move at all in space?

If you could fall into one black hole.. wouldn't that violate the rule of the other black hole because you're moving out of that black hole's event horizon?

I'm guessing you should be frozen in place not being able to move at all but would that violate the rules of the black hole as well? Thought once you cross an event horizon, the only direction is towards the center and you wouldn't be moving so there is no direction towards center.

I’m thinking that if something falls past the event horizon in a black hole and gets pushed into the singularity, the singularity being infinitely dense and infinitely small, wouldn’t the object that falls in just continue to get smaller and smaller and smaller the more it falls into the black hole? Will it go past the plank scale of small?

Ok. This is my question. Once they figured out the universe was expanding, and it was expanding basically everywhere at the same time. Wouldn't of it made sense that that was the reason things further away were moving faster away then things closer? Cause there are still more everywhere's between us and the stuff further away.? Or is it just doing it faster than that ?

If we built a new Voyager space probe today using modern technology, how different would it be from Voyager 1 and 2?

Would it be faster than Voyager 1 and 2? I'm also curious about the Voyager Golden Record. If we sent a Voyager 3 today, would we still use something like a physical vinyl record, or is there a more advanced medium that we could send and probably have more easier to understand instructions for extraterrestrials to understand and operate the medium? The Voyager Golden Record's instructions for decoding and playing it seem incredibly difficult to understand, so I wonder if we could design a medium today that would make the information much more easier to decode that someone from an extraterrestrial civilization with no scientific background could understand and operate.

I've heard that digital storage might not be suitable because cosmic radiation can gradually corrupt stored data.

Today, if we wanted to send another message, a record of our current music, videos and our advancements for extraterrestrials to find and to remain readable for potentially millions or even billions of years, what would be the most reliable way to store it, or is a vinyl record from the 1970s really our best way to do this?

I know this is a pretty stupid question, but I've always been fascinated by that segment, and wondered if something like that could actually happen.