
If we take Einstein’s theory of general relativity into account, an object’s mass increases as it moves faster while its length contracts. Something as warp speed may be possible however, the practicality of traveling faster than the speed of light renders the idea pretty farfetched. Fantasizing about moving faster than the speed of light is quite common in SCI-FI shows such as Star Trek. Whenever someone puts a limit on something, we tend to want to break that limit somehow. The light which travels through Earth’s atmosphere moves as fast as light in a vacuum, while light passing through a diamond is slowed to less than half that speed. In a vacuum, nothing can outpace light however, if a region contains matter, even the tiniest bits of it such as dust, light can bend when it comes in contact and results in a decrease in speed. Like sound, light travels in waves and can be slowed depending on what it is moving through. The speed of light isn’t necessarily constant Though we haven’t reached the speed of light, here are some interesting facts about it. It is how telescopes work since most celestial objects are so far away from us we actually see them in the past. As measurements of these wave-like particles became more precise, we now understand that the speed of light is a theoretical limit.Ĭurrently, we know that light-speed is unreachable by anything with mass. Light is a type of energy, and early scientists believed that it must have traveled instantaneously, unaware of its motion. If you’d have the power to move with the speed of light, you could go around the Earth 7.5 times in one second. We know that nothing can surpass the speed of light, at least in theory.

The speed of light’s exact value is defined as 299.792.458 meters per second or approximately 300.000 km / 186.000 mi per second in a vacuum.
