Very cool! I love Ars Technica, they have some of the best science reporting around.
I agree. Think we will ever have the technology to actually go visit some of those?
I hope so, and I hope it is soon. I'm fifty three and not getting any younger.
But unless some very bright boy or girl thinks up a way to exceed the speed of light, it's probably never going to happen. Who knows, maybe some 8 year old kid on a farm in Kansas has already had the big idea while they were milking the cows this morning.
Even at the speed of light its going to take a while......
we need faster if were ever going to scour even our galaxy.
I think the key is gonna be to somehow slingshot around the sun using the energy off the sun to reach such speeds.
The Alcubierre Drive seems to be the closest we've come, but requires too much of what we know exists (energy) and some stuff that may not exist at all (matter possessing negative mass). However, maybe Alcubierre was on the right track and some form of warp drive may be possible.I believe the only chance we have is some scientific break though that makes our current understanding of distance obsolete. I'm talking space\time folding or wormholes or something. As crazy as those theories are they are still more realistic than being able to achieve the physical speeds needed to actually ever get anywhere.