Traveling into hyperspace has been a fantasy for science fiction writers and screenwriters. George Lucas imagined what this journey might be like in Star Wars, and his version eventually won. Four physics students at the University of Leicester decided to look at the whole thing with pure scientific data and find out what hyperspace travel would be like if it were ever possible.
The idea
The term "hyperspace" is used in topology and refers to a topological space whose elements are objects of another topological space. Science fiction writers and screenwriters have used the term to describe a type of space travel. It is essentially a leap in spacetime since those traveling in hyperspace move at a speed greater than that of light.
According to the dominant cinematic version, as the ship's speed increases, the starlight "stretches." Thus, the ship appears to enter a cosmic tunnel and pass through beams of light.
The phenomenon
The students concluded that if it is ever possible to travel to hyperspace, what we will see will be the vacuum of space, while in the center of the horizon there will be a disk that will emit a bright light. According to the students, on the journey to hyperspace there will be no trace of stars due to the Doppler effect. The effect was named after the Austrian mathematician, physicist and astronomer Christian Doppler. It is the observed change in the frequency and length of a wave by an observer who is in motion relative to the source of the waves.
"If a spaceship is ever built that can travel to the beyond, passengers would be well advised to bring sunglasses. In addition, the ship should have a shield to protect against the harmful X-rays it will be exposed to," says Riley Connors, one of four students who argue that in future films that feature space travel, their creators should think of their own version of how to present it. The students published their work in their university's journal, the Journal of Physics Special Topics.
