3 ms·
Even if you managed to avoid matter, at some point, photons will start to become a problem. As you continue to accelerate, eventually, the cosmic microwave back
by GuB-42 3y ago
Even if you managed to avoid matter, at some point, photons will start to become a problem. As you continue to accelerate, eventually, the cosmic microwave background itself will become deadly X-rays.
- antihipocrat 3y agoWould a layer of water in the forward hull positions mitigate this?
- mr_mitm 3y agoTo a point, sure. Lead would be better. Some joke that this is the reason why Klingons have these thick foreheads.
- xattt 3y agoX-ray sources would turn to gamma rays. Not that it’s any better that X-rays. Other comments suggested lead plates. It would quickly get irradiated and would probably need to get shed as soon as you got to a destination.
- wnkrshm 3y agoNo accounting for particles yet, which you'll also keep hitting, making your ship's materials radioactive and causing lots of secondary particle showers, bremsstrahlung and the likes.
- ben_w 3y agoFirst the particles will act like radiation, then they'll start causing matter-antimatter pair creation with your hull, then you'll get some exotic heavy quarks popping into existence, then you'll get some Higgs particles forming and at some point questions like "what is the mass of my ship" stop making sense.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoNo--x-rays will not make anything radioactive. Gamma rays can only do so when they're in the 2GeV range or higher (indirectly, through pair production.) It's particles that make things radioactive, mostly neutrons as they aren't repelled by the nucleus and thus have a much easier time getting in. And while it would be hard to construct a shield out of it helium is effectively immune to becoming radioactive under neutron bombardment. And while lead isn't immune the reaction sequence produces nothing that won't be contained by the lead and it self-regenerates, enough bombardment returns it to where it started.