by humans. Three... Fans are worried, complete silence at the stadium! Two... Who will be

the winner? One...The fastest human-made object ever built? GO!

In 10th place, we have a missile... or rather, Air Force Hypersonic Rocket Sled. This is

a special mechanism on rails with a rocket engine created to test rockets and other space

objects. Its top speed is just shy of 6,600 mph. This rocket sled is so fast that you

won’t see it if you blink. A 10-miles-long test track, the longest of its kind, was built

specifically for this sled.

Far ahead, the NASA X-43A (or Hyper-X) unmanned supersonic flying vehicle is in 9th place.

This "bird" flies at a speed of 6,800 mph, which is 8.2 times the speed of sound. However,

it lags behind its closest rival by almost 2.5 times.

8th place is shared between two “sisters” — space shuttles "Columbia" and “Discovery.”

By the way, “Columbia” was the first successful reusable ship in the history of space exploration.

To stay in the orbit, these shuttles had to reach a speed of 17,500 mph. By the way, this

necessary speed for stable orbiting applies to all shuttles. At this speed, the crew could

watch the sunrise every 45 minutes. Both shuttles successfully completed more than 50 space

missions.

And we rise higher and higher from the Earth. And what do we see here? This participant

is confidently taking the 7th place. This is Apollo 10, the spacecraft that NASA used

for rehearsal of Moon landing. When returning to the Earth from the lunar orbit in 1969,

gravity accelerated Apollo 10 to a velocity of nearly 25,000 mph at the altitude of 400,000

feet. The Guinness World Records states that Apollo 10 holds the record for the fastest

a human has ever traveled. However, the Apollo 10 mission report states the maximum speed

at entry was 24,816 mph.

In 6th place, far in outer space, the Stardust space probe flies. In 1999, NASA sent this

probe to collect samples from the comet Wild 2. And it brought these samples to Earth already

in 2006. In space, it developed its maximum speed of 28,860 mph. 7 years is not so bad

for a delivery service, given that the probe flew 2.8 billion miles. It's like a round-trip

from the Earth to the Sun 14 times.

Now we're near the dwarf planet Pluto (yes, recently this "baby" was excluded from the

list of planets of the Solar System), around which NASA's "New Horizons" automatic interplanetary

station flies, ranking 5th on our list. It’s not even a ship, but a station, which during

its mission has developed a maximum speed of 36,400 mph. In 2006, NASA sent "New Horizons"

to study Pluto, and for 13 years this poor station was just flying and studying the lonely

and cold dwarf planet. But in January 2019, it flew to study the nearest asteroid, which,

according to conspiracy theories, was a real UFO. But that’s another story.

The 4th place goes to "Voyager 1". This spacecraft was launched to study the further part of

the solar system back in 1977. And in 2013, it entered the interstellar space. At a speed

of 38,000 mph, "Voyager-1" covers a distance of about 335 million miles each year. In 2020,

it will reach nearly 14 billion miles from us, which makes it the most distant object

from the Earth made by humans. It plans to complete its mission in 2025. Although "Voyager

1" is not the champion of our race, it can rightfully be considered the most enduring

participant.

3rd place goes to the Galileo spacecraft, engineered and launched by NASA in 1989 to

study the atmosphere of Jupiter. Galileo's 14-year mission ended in 2003 when the spacecraft

was deliberately sent into Jupiter's atmosphere. Before crashing, it managed to develop a speed

of 108,000 mph. At that speed, one could drive around the Earth at the equator in 14 minutes

(assuming there were bridges across all the oceans) or to the Moon and back in only 5

hours!

The second place is shared between two space probes, "Helios-1" and "Helios-2." Go figure.

The first developed a speed of 147,900 mph, and the second — 153,500 mph. Both devices

were launched in the 70s by NASA and are currently in the Sun’s orbit. Both sent information

about solar dust, solar storms, plasma, and other "hot stuff" to Earth.

And the champion of our competition is Parker Solar Probe. Like Helios, it studies the Sun,

but it flies at an incredible speed of 213,200 mph! In October 2018, it set the record at

a close distance to the Sun. With each lap in its orbit, the Parker accelerates and is

estimated to reach the speed of 430,000 mph by 2024! In general, as you understand, the

closer to the stars, the faster!

Okay let’s lose the track announcer guy for now. (See you next time!) Yeah, yeah,

yeah…

Since we found ourselves in the vast expanses of space, it seems a good idea to learn what

the fastest object in the Universe is, and then you will find out all about the speed

that cannot be overcome.

In 2014, astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics recorded the highest

speed in the universe. And no, this is not a UFO, but a piece of plasma that flew out

of a black hole. According to the calculations, this plasma moves in a spiral and forms a

cone at a speed of nearly 6,000,000 mph! Fortunately, this incredible force flies far from us, in

another galaxy 50 million light-years away.

And one light-year is... I won't bore you with a huge number of zeros: simply put, the

distance you cover within 1 year at the speed of light is 1 light-year. And the speed of

light is about 186,000 miles per second, (you do the math), and this is the speed limit

for everything in the Universe. And what is most interesting, no object that has mass

according to the laws of physics can move at such a speed. Particles of light, or photons,

do not have mass, so they are the only things that can. Photons only need 8 minutes and

20 seconds to reach our planet from the Sun.

But let's imagine hmm?, that humanity someday creates a ship that can accelerate to the

speed of light. Believe me, this will be the most incredible experience of mankind. I invite

you onboard…

We start the engines, are you ready? We pick up speed, achieve the speed of light and...

The ship falls to pieces in a couple of seconds. The fact is that at such a speed, even several

hydrogen atoms will crash with such force that it would form a dose of radiation tens

of thousands of times stronger than a person can withstand. A ship armor which could withstand

such a strong impact of radiation hasn’t yet been invented. Okay, attempt number two...

Now our ship is equipped with a force field and nothing can destroy it. Here we are gaining

speed again. We reach the light limit and overcome it by just four thousandths of a

mile per second. At this moment, something unbelievable happens. The law of cause and

effect is violated. First goes the cause, and then the effect. In simple terms, this

means that you should first become hungry and then eat a burger. It can't be that you

eat a burger, and then you get hungry. But on our ship, it can.

Imagine that having overcome the speed of light, we are catching up with the photons

that our Sun let out 8 minutes ago. Our speed increases and we outrace the photons from

yesterday. Then a week ago, then a month, then a year. In fact, we are flying through

the passage of time, into the past! When we approach the speed of light, time on our ship

slows down, and when we overcome it, time goes back. But this is not even the worst.

According to the theory of relativity, the faster the speed, the more the mass of the

object increases and its size decreases. Our ship will be infinitely heavy and infinitely

small. Do you know what happens when any object begins to endlessly become heavy? Ding Ding!

Black hole. A huge black hole will begin to absorb everything around and increase infinitely.

It doesn’t sound very good, but we just wanted to fly. Even if humanity invents a

way to travel at such speeds, we won't need it. We will learn to overcome space rather

with the help of portals – “rabbit holes”, thanks to which we can find ourselves anywhere

in the universe in a split second. Blows my mind. How about you?

Hey, if you learned something new today, then give the video a like and share it with a

friend! And here are some other cool videos I think you'll enjoy. Just click to the left

or right, and stay on the Bright Side of life!