The post you are reporting:
Chris
The nearest star technically speaking is the Sun some 8 minutes light years away ie it takes 8 minutes for light from the Sun to reach earth.You are quite correct that the nearest star is about 4.2 light years away.If Using modern technology, how long would a trip to the nearest star take?
Our technology, off the shelf, is still primitive. With a gravity assist from Jupiter, they were able to get the Galileo spacecraft to travel about 100,000 kilometers/hour. If we could achieve this speed, then the nearest star would be a dismal 44,500 year journey!!Hence my dismissal of visitors from space and UFO's but I do agree it's pretty arrogant but generally speaking Man is arrogant.
Don't buy your tickets yet!
Technical stuff:
Light travels at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second). Therefore, a light second is 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers). A light year is the distance that light can travel in a year, or: 186,000 miles/second * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 5,865,696,000,000 miles/year A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers).