Does anyone have a good analogy to help explain why people in space age slower than people on earth? It’s a hard concept to grasp for me and would appreciate some help!

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Does anyone have a good analogy to help explain why people in space age slower than people on earth? It’s a hard concept to grasp for me and would appreciate some help!

In: Physics

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Give this a read, it should help you grasp the concept

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/do-astronauts-age-slower-than-people-on-earth-2015-8?r=US&IR=T

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s not being in space but rather traveling at high velocity.
There are good ELI5 posts on why this happens such as [this one](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bm5ff/eli5_why_does_time_slow_down_at_relativistic/)

It’s near impossible for people to reach such high speeds on Earth because the air itself resists movement, but by leaving the atmosphere, astronauts can reach orbital velocity [which is extremely fast by terrestrial standards](https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/) and start seeing actual relativistic effects.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s the other way around. Time on Earth’s surface flows slightly slower compared to in orbit.

EDIT:

Because time dilation is a thing. It flows differently near a gravity well than it does in deep space. Deep space is mostly empty, without much matter creating gravity wells. All matter creates gravity wells, and the matter that makes up Earth is no different.

The closer to the center of a gravity well you get, the slower time flows, compared to further away.
But the difference between sea level and orbit is not much. Less than a second in a lifetime.

Time will also dilate based on relative velocity. The closer to the speed of light you are going, the slower time flows for you.

A high enough velocity will cause additional time dilation that can cancel out the difference in time dilation at different distances from the center of a gravity well.