NO STREAKING STARS?

What jumping into hyperspace really looks like.

What? We cannot jump into hyperspace and see the stars streaking by like the Millennium Falcon of Star Wars? Crap! I was hoping to be able to buy one of those starships in like another 10 years so I can zip around the galaxy and see all the great stuff out there.

Oh, for you perverts out there, the title of this post does not refer to Hollywood stars running around naked.

Thanks to some university kids (University of Leicester) who did some calculations whether we would see the stars streaking like in Star Wars when we jump into hyperspace, they discovered that we won't see it like that. So basically Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia would not see any approaching stars as they accelerate through the galaxy because of the Doppler effect.

This is the phenomenon by which the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation shortens or lengthens depending on whether the source is nearing or moving away from the person who is perceiving it. The classic example of the Doppler effect is the siren of a fire engine or ambulance, whose pitch changes relative to the bystander as it races down the street. Bystander in this case would be you.

What university physics majors thinks a hyperspace jump looks like.

Because the Millennium Falcon is speeding towards the stars, the wavelength of the stellar light would shorten, which means it would move out of the visible part of the energy spectrum and into the X-ray range, the students calculated. And we all know that we cannot see X-rays, if we could we'd be smiling most of the time especially when we're at the shopping mall.

On the other hand, cosmic microwave background radiation — the backwash of radiation from the Big Bang which created the Universe 14 billion years ago — would lengthen in wavelength and suddenly become visible. Hence we can now see the Cosmic Microwave Background, well at least the WMAP satellite could.

To those onboard the Millennium Falcon however, this ancient energy would appear as a central disc of brilliant light. But we don't really care about a central disc of brilliant light, do we? We just want to see those streaking stars man! Not the Hollywood type (hmm, not such a bad idea actually).

“If the Millennium Falcon existed and really could travel that fast, sunglasses would certainly be advisable,” said Riley Connors, 21, who worked with three other final-year Master of Physics students in an offbeat project aimed at stimulating out-of-the-box thinking.

Out-of-the-box thinking, eh? Well Riley, why don't you come up with glasses that will extrapolate the light by reverse multiplexing the dopler radiation to make the stars streak when we go into a hyperjump!

Katie Dexter, 21, from Kettering, concluded: “Perhaps Disney should take the physical implications of such high speed travel into account in their forthcoming films.” Is she nuts? She can't be a Trekkie either. Disney, if you ever listen to her, I will burn down Disney World. We love our science fiction! Lets keep it real.