Stars and the center of the galaxy.

[dharak1]

So I was searching around for info on binary systems online and wikipedia said that star density went up near the galactic center. If that is true then not only would binary systems be more common but if stars are closer would civilizations near the center have an easier time going from star to star? If stars were even 2 LY apart it would make interstellar travel much easier. Going 10% the speed of light it would only take 20 years and 40 at 5% even if you could only get to 2.5% It would still be doable in a human lifetime. It's 2 in the morning and I have no idea if I am right but would it make it easier? Obviously it is stupid to send an astronaut on a 40 year trip when he is 35 so he comes back half dead. I feel that Interstellar trips will be done in large groups at first.

[Winter Man]

Most of your assumptions are right, except I'm pretty sure the radiation in the core is lethally high (to Earth life, at least - don't discount the aliens entirely). Also, the lifespan of whatever lives there might be drastically different to our own. For critters that had million year natural lives, interstellar distances wouldn't seem like all that much.

[dharak1]

Good point. Their lifespans may also be shorter. Although this is all speculation now because they may not even die at all.

[lajoswinkler]

Most of your assumptions are right, except I'm pretty sure the radiation in the core is lethally high (to Earth life, at least - don't discount the aliens entirely). Also, the lifespan of whatever lives there might be drastically different to our own. For critters that had million year natural lives, interstellar distances wouldn't seem like all that much.

Nobody lives in the core. The core of Milky Way is a supermassive black hole.

There are quite old stars in the bulge around the center and there might be life.

[Ralathon]

Sure, it gets easier to get from star to star as density goes up. But it also becomes more and more inhospitable.

Higher star density means more close passes, so orbits are less stable and planetary systems become less likely. Near the galactic heart space is a rather hellish landscape of radiation and blue giants flinging around at insane speeds. It isn't very conductive to life.

[Mr. Scruffy]

So I was searching around for info on binary systems online and wikipedia said that star density went up near the galactic center. If that is true then not only would binary systems be more common but if stars are closer would civilizations near the center have an easier time going from star to star? If stars were even 2 LY apart it would make interstellar travel much easier. Going 10% the speed of light it would only take 20 years and 40 at 5% even if you could only get to 2.5% It would still be doable in a human lifetime. It's 2 in the morning and I have no idea if I am right but would it make it easier? Obviously it is stupid to send an astronaut on a 40 year trip when he is 35 so he comes back half dead. I feel that Interstellar trips will be done in large groups at first.

I guess proximity to another star is one of the reasons for the zeta-reticuli-legend. Get a program like ´celestia´ and search for this star. Actually, there are two of them, alpha and beta, both quite like the sun, and only 0.006 LY apart (IIRC). I read, that that´s not quite close enough to form a binary (which is probably good for life). But imagine we had another sun-like star that close in our neighborhood - we could have probably detected any earthlike planet orbiting it decades ago - and imagine we would have!

[dharak1]

That would be great! Too bad our nearest star is 4 LY away...

[Ralathon]

That would be great! Too bad our nearest star is 4 LY away...

4.4... And then it's a binary (tertairy if you count proxima) system with very few stable orbits in the goldilocks zone. Bah, no nearby backup earth for us.

[JebidiahsBigSister]

If stars were even 2 LY apart it would make interstellar travel much easier. Going 10% the speed of light it would only take 20 years and 40 at 5% even if you could only get to 2.5% It would still be doable in a human lifetime.

You don't have to go to the center of the Galaxy to get higher star densities. Globular clusters are scattered all around the galaxy just outside of the galactic plane. The closest one, M4 ,is "just" 7200 light years away (a quarter of the distance to the galactic center) and contains 10,000 stars in just a 75 light year diameter

Issac Azimov wrote a classic science fiction piece, titled NightFall, about a civilization living in such a cluster.

[Vonar]

While that is a decent assessment of the situation there is such a thing called a galactic habitation zone, and the planet's that may exist near the galactic core would be uninhabitable to humans without considerable stellar radiation protection.

[Awaras]

While that is a decent assessment of the situation there is such a thing called a galactic habitation zone, and the planet's that may exist near the galactic core would be uninhabitable to humans without considerable stellar radiation protection.

Actually, that theory has been put into question by more recent research...