 trillion km (about 6 trillion miles). Furthermore, Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity teaches that any mass increases as it approaches the speed of light, thus requiring even more energy to accelerate it. But the problems for hypothetical aliens start well before this becomes an issue.27
Sand grains become bombs
A fleck of paint left this crater on the surface of Space Shuttle Challenger’ front window on STS-7.
Imagine an alien space craft with a mass of only 10 tonnes or 10,000 kg (about 22,000 lb)—the Apollo Lunar Module, which could take only two men, was about 15 tonnes. Then how much energy would it take to accelerate it to 100,000 km/s, or a third of the speed of light (c⁄3)? This is given closely enough by the formula in ordinary classical physics—no matter how gradually this speed is reached, this total energy must be supplied:
E = ½mv²
= ½ × 10,000 kg × (100,000,000 m/s)²
= 50 exajoules (5 × 1019 J).
This is equal to the entire world consumption of energy for over a month!28 What possible source could produce such an enormous output, as well as accelerate at takeoff the extra mass of this source?
Antimatter is the only real possibility, since it can annihilate ordinary matter with complete conversion to energy, according to Einstein’s famous formula, E = mc². If perfect annihilation were achieved (most unlikely), 500 kg each of antimatter and matter would produce: 1000 kg × (3 × 108 m/s)² = 90 exajoules. So this looks like enough. But not so fast! About the same amount of energy would be needed to slow the alien craft when it reaches Earth, and already they are running out of fuel. And this is just a small craft—powering the massive space-ships of the movies for many fast, intricate maneuvers … it’s not called science fiction for nothing. Consider also that we have not even produced anti-atoms yet, except for perhaps about a hundred thousand anti-hydrogen atoms, a sub-microscopic amount.29
This energy shortage is not the only thing for aliens to worry about. They need also to avoid tiny sand grains and even flecks of paint. Even our own spacecrafts are damaged severely by impacts of only about 10 km/s (22,000 mph)—see picture. These hypothetical alien ships are travelling 10,000 times faster, so the impact energy would be 100 million times more. Even a snowflake colliding at such a speed has almost as much kinetic energy as 4 tons of TNT,30 which must be released somewhere in the craft, or else it will shoot through everything in its path. A 1-kg body colliding and releasing all its energy would be like a one-megaton hydrogen bomb.31 A swarm of even small meteorites or asteroids would be catastrophic. Thus huge amounts of energy must be expended on some sort of deflector to prevent such impacts.
Because many believe that life evolved on other planets and that it might be millions of years older than humans, they also belief that aliens would have had the time to develop the incredible technologies as depicted in much sci-fi. However, no amount of advanced technology could actually defy or ‘turn off’ the laws of physics that govern our universe. This would be necessary even to travel close to the speed of light, let alone faster. These are insurmountable problems.
As the Bible’s ‘big picture’ would indicate,25 there are no aliens from other planets visiting Earth. And the above simple physics shows how nonsensical the idea is: the energy required even for mild-sounding ‘sub-light’ travel is more than the whole human race consumes in a month, and the impact of even small bodies is like a nuclear explosion. So enjoy the science fiction if you like, but for facts, return to God’s Word.
References and Notes
- E.g. the finding, in Western Australia, of fossilised micro-organisms in rocks supposedly 3.5 billion years old. Hot news from north pole, Creation 15(4):9, 1993, commenting on Science 260(5108):640–646, 30 April 1993. Return to text.
- I.e. DNA-based. This rules out theoretical fantasies such as “silicon-based life” and “sulfur-based life”. Return to text.
- See Sarfati, J., The sun: our special star, Cre