How fast are SE4 ships. OT: How big is a system?

[Rollo]

Here is something interesting. Or maybe not. Decide for yourself...

I was interested on how fast ships can move in SE4. So I did some research and some rough calculations.

So for the basis of the calculation, I assumed that that a SE4 vessel can cross a system in one month (that is speed 13 in SE4 terms).
But how big is a system in terms of light days?

Let's look at the the solar system:
The edge of the solar system is hard to define. Is it the outer orbit of pluto? Or the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt? Or the heliopause?
here is some data that I gathered:
The average orbit of Pluto is 39.5 AU (astronomical unit, average distance from sun-earth). reference: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/que...php?number=374
That equals about 5.5 light hours. ref: http://www.noao.edu/education/peppercorn/pcmain.html

The Kupier Belt lies between 30 and 100 AU. ref: http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplan...nets/kboc.html
but some objects lie even further than that. here is a nice picture about that: http://dosxx.colorado.edu/Pluto/Kuiper.jpg

The heliopause is hard to determine. The upper limit is approximated at 90 to 120 AU. ref: http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/plas...r/heliopr.html and http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020624.html

So with this data let's say that a system has a diameter of 160 AU. That is 4 times the average orbit of pluto, which was 5.5 light hrs. 4 times 5.5 light hours is aprox. 1 light day.

Conclusion: SE4 ships can cover a distance of 1 light day in one month. That means that the ships can travel at about 1/30 of the speed of light. Or in other terms: 3.33% of c (speed of light).

Hope you find this interesting. I sure enjoyed doing the research .
Rollo

[ January 27, 2003, 01:41: Message edited by: Rollo ]