A Journey to the End of the Universe

Could humans ever travel to other galaxies within their lifetime? The immense scale of the Universe seems to prohibit such voyages, after all the nearest galaxy is so far away that it takes light itself - the fastest thing in the Universe - 2.5 million years to complete the trip. Remarkably, there is a trick that might allow humans to accomplish this feat - join us today as we step onboard the constantly accelerating spaceship!

Written and presented by Professor David Kipping.

Chapters
0:00 - Prologue
2:57 - A Journey to Alpha Centauri
11:27 - Returning from Distant Shores
21:12 - Onward to the End

Further reading and resources:

► Lee, J. & Cleaver, G., 2015, "The Relativistic Blackbody Spectrum in Inertial and Non-Inertial Reference Frames":
► Yurtsever, U. & Wilkinson, S. 2015, "Limits and Signatures of Relativistic Flight":
► Margalef-Bentabol, B., Margalef-Bentabol, J., Cepa, J., 2013, "Evolution of the Cosmological Horizons in a Concordance Universe":
► Columbia University Department of Astronomy:
► Cool Worlds Lab website:

Music is largely by Chris Zabriskie ( and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license ( in order of appearance;
► Cylinder Five (
► Music from Neptune Flux, "The Oceans Continue to Rise
► Music from Neptune Flux, "We Were Never Meant to Live Here"
► Cylinder Two (
► Cylinder Four (
► Cylinder Eight (
► "It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn" by Hill, licensed through SoundStripe.com
► Cylinder Two (
► "It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn" by Hill, licensed through SoundStripe.com

Video materials used:

► Intro/outro video by ESO/Mark Swinbank, Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University, "Flying through the MUSE view of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field":
► Voyager 2 footage courtesy NASA JPL:
► Nautilus X videos from f r a g o m a t i k: and
► Ship passing Moon & Mars taken from "Beer from Mars" by MoonMan Pictures:
► "A Journey to Alpha Centauri" video by ESO./L. Calçada/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org):
► Relativistic travel through a lattice by Ute Kraus:
► Earth time lapse footage taken onboard the International Space Station by NASA's Earth Science & Remote Sensing Unit
► Fly-through space footage from Space.com:
► "A Flight Through the Universe", by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Miguel Aragon & Alex Szalay (Johns Hopkins), Mark Subbarao (Adler Planetarium):
► Galaxy spinning animation by spacetelescope.org:
► Expanding universe animation by EposChronicles:

Films clips used:
► Agora (2009)
► Star Trek (1966 - 1969)
► Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
► Interstellar (2014)
► The Expanse (2015 - present)
► 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
► The Martian (2015)
► Passengers (2016)
► Alien (1979)
► Flame over India (1959)
► Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
► Prometheus (2012)
► Alien: Covenant (2017)
► Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 - 1994)
► Planet Earth (2006)
► Elysium (2013)
► Alien: Resurrection (1997)
► Avengers: Endgame (2019)
► What Dreams May Come (1998)

Special thanks to YouTuber Madd End for this fantastic artist's impression of the halo drive: Thumbnail image by Hazan:

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