Far too far

THE idea there’s a newly-discovered solar system which could be like ours is speculative nonsense (Mail).

It’s 39 light years away. So a spaceship would need to travel at a speed of 186,000 miles a second for 39 years to get there. That speed is the equivalent of circling the Earth eight times in one second.

Nasa’s current Herculean project to take astronauts to Mars in 2035 puts this fanciful idea into sharp relief. The ship it is building, The Orion, will have to travel around 34 million miles to reach Mars.

At the speed of light, this would take about three minutes. In reality, it will take nine months at a speed just under 400,000 times slower than the speed of light.

The science-fiction story about parallel solar systems, with artists’ impressions of what the planets look like, is pure fantasy.

To speculate about another solar system on the basis of a spot passing across the path of a star so far away is akin to attempting to separate one atom from another using only the naked eye.

This exciting new star is just one among trillions that can never be reached. I’m much more excited about the very real possibility of humans travelling to Mars. It’s real and can be verified.

JOHN MANSFORD, Basildon, Essex