This is such a great video on putting into perspective how long it would really take to explore our Milky Way Galaxy.
Even then, it is still a bit off on the scale of our Milky Way Galaxy.
How long it would REALLY take to explore our Milky Way Galaxy.
- Thread starter Kamen Rider Blade
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This is such a great video on putting into perspective how long it would really take to explore our Milky Way Galaxy.
Even then, it is still a bit off on the scale of our Milky Way Galaxy.
100,000 light years is the common assumed size of the Milky Way but...no...it's bigger than that. Pretty close to 150,000 at the extreme and not even accounting for all of the various satellite galaxies.
As to the number of actual stars in the Milky Way - the estimates have been increasing since many more red dwarf stars have been spotted. Brown dwarf stars are another matter altogether...
As to the number of actual stars in the Milky Way - the estimates have been increasing since many more red dwarf stars have been spotted. Brown dwarf stars are another matter altogether...
The 150,000 over-shoots the Thin Disk & conflates it with the Thick Disk.
Most average folks don't even know that our Thin Disk is part of a larger Galactic Structure in most "Disk Based Galaxies".
Our Milky Way Galaxy also has a Thick Disk like most "Disk Based Galaxies".
So when they mention the 100,000 ly diameter, that's just one part of many larger Galactic Structures in existence that isn't being mentioned.
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According to AI;
With theoretical warp capability (assuming speeds ∼1,000 to 9,000 times the speed of light), exploring the
100,000–180,000
light-year wide Milky Way could take between 11 and 100 years.
Additionally;
Time Constraints: While a warp ship could cross the galaxy in a human lifetime, exploring (stopping at systems) would likely take thousands of years, notes this Quora post.
My calculations came up with perhaps a more reasonable figure of;
50 Bazilion Years…
With theoretical warp capability (assuming speeds ∼1,000 to 9,000 times the speed of light), exploring the
100,000–180,000
light-year wide Milky Way could take between 11 and 100 years.
Additionally;
Time Constraints: While a warp ship could cross the galaxy in a human lifetime, exploring (stopping at systems) would likely take thousands of years, notes this Quora post.
- Relativistic Effects: If approaching light speed, the crew would age slower than those at home due to special relativity, making long journeys feasible within a single lifetime, according to this Quora post.
My calculations came up with perhaps a more reasonable figure of;
50 Bazilion Years…
Attachments
I don't have much faith in AI's calculations compared to human calculated numbers.
The bigger issue is that once you get to a Star System, you generally want to do more than a "Superficial Scan of the Star System" and moving on to the Next Star System.
After using so many resources to get to a Star System, you want to scan with every scanner in your inventory to get the best data possible & pass all that data back to the UFP.
Once you do that, then you can leave a bunch of Geo Stationary Satellites for all the Major Planetoids & Lagrange Ranges to do "Long Term Observations" & feed back continuous data to the UFP.
Each Planetoid needs a Minimum of 2x Satellites, but I usually recommend 6x Satellites for a Box Formation around each Planetoid that allows inter Satellite Communication along with guranteeing no gaps in Planetoid Surface Coverage and some redundancy.
All that scanning, traveling around locally at STL speeds & setting up Satellites for Long Term observation would take a significant amount of time before you even decide to warp out to the next Closest Star System to explore.
That's a far better use of your exploration resources IMO.
And you would expand out your exploration to the nearest Star Systems one at a time and leave no gaps in coverage.
This way you can establish a giant Network of Communications between Star Systems to establish a Massive & Dense SubSpace Communication Relay Grid in 3D space.
This allows redundancy in communication and makes feeding data back to the UFP more resilient.
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Allowing approximately one week's travel between stars, and typically one week of observation of a class M planet, unless something really interesting is found...
Around 26 stars per year for a Constitution class starship.
However, choosing the stars to visit is the problem. Therefore unmanned probes would be first in. The Flagstaff class unmanned probe, wouldn't exist in the tens, nor the hundreds, in thousands of them. Acting as an advanced filter to decide what happens next. Flagstaff class would spend about a day per star, unless something interesting is discovered. Then another day for that.
Then an Archer class manned scout - existing in numbers of hundreds would be deployed depending upon the interest level. After all, there are only fourteen Constitution class Starships...
So the Flagstaff aren't particular. Archers may visit one in ten stars already visited by a Flagstaff. Constitution class Starships visit only interesting stars with class M worlds. And possible civilization.
As far as civilization goes from extinct to not ready to ready.
You don't want to waste a Starship's time. However, most likely only four(crew 430) of the fourteen would be on exploration duty. Another four(403 crew), on enhanced patrol duty. And final batch(203 crew) on patrol duty.
Hermes class Scouts are investigative, handling the lesser interesting stars. Keeping in mind that surprises happen. They also provide an armed response effort.
Saladin class? They guard the Klingon/Federation boarder, later on, the Romulan Star Empire/Federation boarder, as more Saladin class are built.
Around 26 stars per year for a Constitution class starship.
However, choosing the stars to visit is the problem. Therefore unmanned probes would be first in. The Flagstaff class unmanned probe, wouldn't exist in the tens, nor the hundreds, in thousands of them. Acting as an advanced filter to decide what happens next. Flagstaff class would spend about a day per star, unless something interesting is discovered. Then another day for that.
Then an Archer class manned scout - existing in numbers of hundreds would be deployed depending upon the interest level. After all, there are only fourteen Constitution class Starships...
So the Flagstaff aren't particular. Archers may visit one in ten stars already visited by a Flagstaff. Constitution class Starships visit only interesting stars with class M worlds. And possible civilization.
As far as civilization goes from extinct to not ready to ready.
You don't want to waste a Starship's time. However, most likely only four(crew 430) of the fourteen would be on exploration duty. Another four(403 crew), on enhanced patrol duty. And final batch(203 crew) on patrol duty.
Hermes class Scouts are investigative, handling the lesser interesting stars. Keeping in mind that surprises happen. They also provide an armed response effort.
Saladin class? They guard the Klingon/Federation boarder, later on, the Romulan Star Empire/Federation boarder, as more Saladin class are built.
IF we get to the point of being able to actually explore this galaxy with FTL ships...you would probably send out scouts to just do short cursory scans from various points to try to detect obscured stars (and weaker ones) and systems and then plan longer missions for more capable ships.
Scout goes out say - 10-20 light years and drops sub-light...scans all sources of radiation in all directions on all possible bands. Documents everything it can pickup and corrects star charts as there will almost certainly be stars that are not quite where we think they are now...
That information is then sorted and a plan is setup for a larger ship to go out and look at the more interesting systems first and move on from there. That ship should be able to stay on station longer and do at least some survey work in the system. Anything that would require long-term study - you send something more specialized to follow-up.
This isn't far from what Star Trek occasionally shows but, doesn't do so as consistently as it probably should. That's mainly because the show is often side-tracked with more action packed stories. Actual exploration might be seen as drudgery...
Scout goes out say - 10-20 light years and drops sub-light...scans all sources of radiation in all directions on all possible bands. Documents everything it can pickup and corrects star charts as there will almost certainly be stars that are not quite where we think they are now...
That information is then sorted and a plan is setup for a larger ship to go out and look at the more interesting systems first and move on from there. That ship should be able to stay on station longer and do at least some survey work in the system. Anything that would require long-term study - you send something more specialized to follow-up.
This isn't far from what Star Trek occasionally shows but, doesn't do so as consistently as it probably should. That's mainly because the show is often side-tracked with more action packed stories. Actual exploration might be seen as drudgery...
There's charting space, and then exploring space. I would argue the latter takes far longer. A brief scan of a planet or star system will tell a ship like Enterprise the basics, but a full survey by a dedicated science vessel will likely involve investigating every single thing possible and could be quite time-consuming & tedious to anyone other than scientists. I could see a science vessel spending weeks and even months studying a single planet and whatever life-forms it might have before moving on to the next one.
Maybe if the Reliant had been a pure science vessel in TWOK, her crew might have noticed there was a planet missing in the Ceti Alpha System...
Maybe if the Reliant had been a pure science vessel in TWOK, her crew might have noticed there was a planet missing in the Ceti Alpha System...
In Trek they already mention both Deep Space Probes basically warping into systems, scanning, and moving on, reporting anything interesting like M classes, ships, or anomalies, and Deep Space Explorer ships farrrr out ahead of the Federation (TNG, the space surfboard episode IIRC and VOY, respectively). There is also the backlog of exploration from the 'older' powers like the Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Orions if you can buy it, and so on. TNG starts off with them mentioning like 11%-19% of their galaxy is 'explored', but how detailed that exploration is is not mentioned - but there's definitely a lot still left to go, but a herculean effort has been made already.
IRL the structure of the Milky Way is also a bit lopsided isn't it, like there's a lip curve up at one end of the disk, the halo structure of a satellite galaxy being consumed, et al. There's plenty of room in fiction and real life for exploration to go down still.
I do wonder what those Deep Space Explorers would look like. They basically signed on to go Voyager's way and would meet them in a decade or so, and I think were already basically 20 years away from Earth themselves. That screams like, some Spacer member race to me or so with huge onboard facilities to keep themselves up and running. What a gig.
IRL the structure of the Milky Way is also a bit lopsided isn't it, like there's a lip curve up at one end of the disk, the halo structure of a satellite galaxy being consumed, et al. There's plenty of room in fiction and real life for exploration to go down still.
I do wonder what those Deep Space Explorers would look like. They basically signed on to go Voyager's way and would meet them in a decade or so, and I think were already basically 20 years away from Earth themselves. That screams like, some Spacer member race to me or so with huge onboard facilities to keep themselves up and running. What a gig.
TL;DW
But there's an estimated 100-400 BILLION stars in the Milky Way. Even if you take the lower estimate and come up with an FTL drive that can visit a different star every second, it would take...
100,000,000,000 / 60sec/min / 60min/hr / 24hr/day / 365.25days/yr = 3168.8 YEARS
...to visit every star. Add in any kind of travel time between stars above that, and you're getting into even more ludicrous territory.
But there's an estimated 100-400 BILLION stars in the Milky Way. Even if you take the lower estimate and come up with an FTL drive that can visit a different star every second, it would take...
100,000,000,000 / 60sec/min / 60min/hr / 24hr/day / 365.25days/yr = 3168.8 YEARS
...to visit every star. Add in any kind of travel time between stars above that, and you're getting into even more ludicrous territory.
One must have, one's hobbies...
No one has ever said that it would be a 'short' time.
In Issac Asimov's Foundation series, it took around 20,000 years.
One must, therefore have a great deal of patience.
As I pointed out, earlier fourteen Starships is a ridiculously low number. Even using both manned, and unmanned...filters.
No one has ever said that it would be a 'short' time.
In Issac Asimov's Foundation series, it took around 20,000 years.
One must, therefore have a great deal of patience.
As I pointed out, earlier fourteen Starships is a ridiculously low number. Even using both manned, and unmanned...filters.
This. And then Dr. Crater enters the chat, along with the various duck blind research outpost folks, the Calder II outpost/ruins folks, et cetera, et cetera.
To fully explore? Forever.
Agreed. We're not done fully exploring just the one planet yet, and it's been many millennia so far.
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