Light is widely recognised as having the fastest speed in the universe, with its velocity in a vacuum measured at 299,792.458 kilometres per second, roughly equivalent to 3 lakh kilometres per second. This incredible speed allows light to traverse the vast distance from the sun to Earth in just 8 minutes and 20 seconds, despite the sun being approximately fifteen crore kilometres away. Contrastingly, the fastest man-made machine is the New Horizons Spacecraft, an interplanetary space probe that continues to orbit in space, periodically transmitting interesting images. Reports indicate that the New Horizons Spacecraft achieves a speed of 16 kilometres per second, a velocity incomparable to the speed of light.
Launched as part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, the spacecraft was meticulously designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) under the guidance of Alan Stern. Its primary objective was to conduct a flyby investigation of the Pluto system in 2015.
New Horizons started on its journey on January 19, 2006, propelled by an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. With a speed of approximately 16.26 km/s (10.10 mi/s; 58,500 km/h; 36,400 mph), it secured its position as the fastest human-made object launched from Earth, calculated as the average speed relative to Earth.
In addition to spacecraft, humans have also generated particles with remarkable speeds. Notably, William Bertozzi, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, successfully accelerated electrons to high speeds. Contrary to the common belief that pushing something faster automatically increases its speed, achieving higher speeds necessitates applying substantial force to electrons.
It is essential to recognise, however, that the speed of anything, including accelerated electrons, cannot match that of light. This disparity arises from the fact that light consists of weightless photons, which inherently move at a much faster pace than electrons. The unique characteristic of photons, lacking weight, contributes to their extraordinary speed, while electrons, as they gain momentum, become heavier, resulting in a deceleration of their speed.