7 Light Year Jumps Versus Reality.... Where You Cannot Go

[Spacescifi]

After playing Oolite (based on original elite with many add-ons), I wonder how well or not a 7 LY jump would work IRL?

Some stars are farther than 7 LY, so in the game you hop from system to system, and some systems you cannot reach at all if there is no in between system to hop to.

So how common are star systems that are farther away from other stars? 7 LY or further that cannot be jumped to.

 

Because I am curious if the 7 LY jump can even work well at all,  if most stars are closer than 7 LY together, then great, otherwise many places will be off limits.

Edited July 18, 2021 by Spacescifi

[wumpus]

Presumably your best bet is to keep hopping towards the center of the Milky Way.  You'll be able  to get to many more stars as they get closer together.  No idea how old they are and how that would effect if it had habitable planets or not.

And don't forget that every jump effectively changes the past.

[UmbralRaptor]

Presumably you get something like the oddness of 2300 AD's stutterwarp, where there are limited routes that tend towards long chains with a few hubs, and a handful of system are inaccessible. Also, for the purposes of this, it matters a fair amount of brown dwarfs etc are usable for jumps.

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

Presumably your best bet is to keep hopping towards the center of the Milky Way.  You'll be able  to get to many more stars as they get closer together.  No idea how old they are and how that would effect if it had habitable planets or not.

And don't forget that every jump effectively changes the past.

 

11 minutes ago, UmbralRaptor said:

Presumably you get something like the oddness of 2300 AD's stutterwarp, where there are limited routes that tend towards long chains with a few hubs, and a handful of system are inaccessible. Also, for the purposes of this, it matters a fair amount of brown dwarfs etc are usable for jumps.

 

A casual google search reveals that average distance between stars is between 4-5 LY in the Milky Way, but is less toward the center.

 

Do not go towar the center. No human life can live there because... radiation.

 

Any human life would live in around the arm edges like us.

[UmbralRaptor]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

A casual google search reveals that average distance between stars is between 4-5 LY in the Milky Way, but is less toward the center.

Things may be better connected than I thought, though there's a possibility of winding paths and limited hubs. After fiddling a bit with the data in a 10 pc catalog, I get the following:

Sol with Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, and Luhman 16 (brown dwarf)

Alpha Centauri with Sol, Barnard's Star, and Luhman 16 (brown dwarf)

Barnard's star with Sol, Alpha Centauri, Luhman 16 (brown dwarf), WISE J085510.74-071442.5 (brown dwarf), Wolf 359, Lalande 21185, Sirius, UV Ceti, Ross 154, Epsilon Eridani, HD 217987, Ross 128, EZ Aquarii, Procyon, Tau Ceti, YZ Ceti, and Luyten's Star

Luhman 16 with Sol, Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, WISE J085510.74-071442.5 (brown dwarf), Sirius, Ross 248, 61 Cyg, Goombridge 34, Kruger 60, and maybe DENIS J104814.6-395606

 

The nearest stars that are going to take actual effort to find a route to are Struve 2398, DX Cancri, and Epsilon Indi.

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

Do not go towar the center. No human life can live there because... radiation.

Any human life would live in around the arm edges like us.

The galactic habitable zone is considered to begin at around 7 kpc, which is actually quite close to the Galactic Center. Radiation wouldn't preclude life until you went significantly closer.

[Nuke]

the density of stars close to the galactic center might make solar systems significantly less stable in the long term. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, UmbralRaptor said:

Things may be better connected than I thought, though there's a possibility of winding paths and limited hubs. After fiddling a bit with the data in a 10 pc catalog, I get the following:

Sol with Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, and Luhman 16 (brown dwarf)

Alpha Centauri with Sol, Barnard's Star, and Luhman 16 (brown dwarf)

Barnard's star with Sol, Alpha Centauri, Luhman 16 (brown dwarf), WISE J085510.74-071442.5 (brown dwarf), Wolf 359, Lalande 21185, Sirius, UV Ceti, Ross 154, Epsilon Eridani, HD 217987, Ross 128, EZ Aquarii, Procyon, Tau Ceti, YZ Ceti, and Luyten's Star

Luhman 16 with Sol, Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, WISE J085510.74-071442.5 (brown dwarf), Sirius, Ross 248, 61 Cyg, Goombridge 34, Kruger 60, and maybe DENIS J104814.6-395606

 

The nearest stars that are going to take actual effort to find a route to are Struve 2398, DX Cancri, and Epsilon Indi.

Can you do jumps like this to 18 Sco?

[UmbralRaptor]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Can you do jumps like this to 18 Sco?

Not without a lot more effort.

1. I'd need a catalog with parallaxes that's complete out to 15 or 20 pc (possibly some sort of combination of several -- there are a fair number of stars that aren't in Hipparcos or Gaia)
2. There are enough jumps that I'd probably want some sort of algorithmic approach instead of throwing this into Excel and manually noting the distances less than ~7 light-years.

[Spacescifi]

8 minutes ago, UmbralRaptor said:

Not without a lot more effort.

1. I'd need a catalog with parallaxes that's complete out to 15 or 20 pc (possibly some sort of combination of several -- there are a fair number of stars that aren't in Hipparcos or Gaia)
2. There are enough jumps that I'd probably want some sort of algorithmic approach instead of throwing this into Excel and manually noting the distances less than ~7 light-years.

 

Wow... remind me that mathematicians and computers are the most essential crew you ever need on a scifi starship if getting NOT lost matters LOL.

 

You or people like you should do just fine. Better than the starfleet.... regulars.

 

Though I will admit it is hard for actors to truly demonstrate 'the right stuff' crews need to have when producers have an agenda and a budget that could care less.

Edited July 19, 2021 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

We should not confuse "too radioactive and hot to let the endemic life evolve" with "too radioactive and hot to stay there for a weekend or even for a ten of millenia".

You can live on a blue giant planet for thousand of years if it's enough far from the star and you don't stay on the beach. But no local life is possible because it needs a billion.

Edited July 19, 2021 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, UmbralRaptor said:

Not without a lot more effort.

1. I'd need a catalog with parallaxes that's complete out to 15 or 20 pc (possibly some sort of combination of several -- there are a fair number of stars that aren't in Hipparcos or Gaia)
2. There are enough jumps that I'd probably want some sort of algorithmic approach instead of throwing this into Excel and manually noting the distances less than ~7 light-years.

About two decades ago I tried to do this with some reaaaaally old (but new at the time) software that plotted stars and gave a 3D representation of where they were.  Was a truly cool program, for the time.

I appreciate the answer: tells me that things have not gotten 'simple' after all this time!

[SOXBLOX]

@Spacescifi, check out this. Lots of great resources in this section of AR.