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Asked by masoodargiebargie to Callum, Gina, Katie, Michelle, Sam on 19 Nov 2012.
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Sam Godfrey answered on 19 Nov 2012:
Yes you could, but at the moment it would take a very very long time. The furthest thing we’ve ever sent is a satellite called voyager. It is now 33 years old and has just left our solar system (It is now 10.8 billion miles away). Seeing as our galaxy (the milky way) has 300 billion stars, of which most have solar systems like ours, and ours is only average size, it would take a hugely long time to cross the galaxy. I think that our star is near the edge, so if the satellite could head in the right direction then it wouldn’t have to cross the whole distance. But if there were a way of going much faster, or somehow bending the distance of space then yes, you could probably get out of our galaxy and head towards one of the other 100’s of billions of galaxies. All this makes you realise how tiny we are. I’d love to leap forward a few hundred years and see what we’ve managed to achieve in space travel then.
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Callum Johnston answered on 19 Nov 2012:
Well our galaxy (the milky way) is about 100,000 light years wide and 1000 light years thick. Even though earth is near the edge of the galaxy it would take hundreds of light years to travel to the edge, by the time the rocket had reached the edge of the galaxy humans may well be extinct.
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Michelle Linterman answered on 19 Nov 2012:
Not realistically, we don’t have the technology to get a person out there in their life time. But, you never know what may happen in the future!
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Katie Howe answered on 19 Nov 2012:
In theory I think you could. But the milky way is so massive that it would take a ridiculously long time – even if we had the technology to travel at the speed of light it would take hundreds or thousands of years!
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