Can someone explain to me why this isn't melting Voyager?
replies(9):
Interesting to think that while it's not a concern to Voyager at its pokey 17km/second, a true interstellar ship traveling at some respectable fraction of C would compress the diffuse interstellar gasses enough to make them a potential hazard. You frequently see people saying stuff like "if we could accelerate to a high fraction of C you could get anywhere in the galaxy in a single lifetime", but it may not be so simple.