In order for humans to reach the stars, there is a need to attend to logistical issues. According to Science Alert, one of these serious issues is the time it takes to travel and reach the destination. Space is incredibly vast, while the technology of humans remains limited. Because of such limitations, travel time to different stars serves as a vital barrier.
How Long Does Space Travel Take to Reach the Stars?
NASA notes that the most proximate star to the sun is Proxima Centauri. Even if it is the closest, it is still located 40,208,000,000,000 kilometers away from the supergiant. If the Voyager 1 craft is to go to Proxima Centauri at a rate of 17.2 km per second, the spacecraft will take around 73,000 years to reach its destination.
Voyager, however, was launched over four decades ago. More updated spacecraft may be capable of traveling faster. Nevertheless, even with the latest and up-to-date technology, spacecraft may still take several thousand years to reach the stars.
Ways to Lengthen Space Travel Capacity
A probable solution for such a concern is to let several space traveler generations board the ship, wherein they will both live and die until they reach their destination. Another possible way to combat the concern would be to implement artificial hibernation if this can be executed successfully.
Monkey Study on Artificial Hibernation
The latter has been a study focus from SIAT (Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology) scientists. However, their participants covered monkeys, not humans.
Their findings were included in the Innovation publication. The researchers tried to induce a hypothermic state as part of the study chemically.
The scientists note in their study that they reveal how enabling a POA (preoptic area) neuronal subpopulation through a chemogenetic method leads to reliable hypothermia induction among macaques anesthetized and free to move. Their findings show how body temperatures among primates can be centrally managed and could reveal a pathway for future clinical application.
Hibernation, alongside its reduced comatose condition Torpor, are physiological conditions that enable animals to endure extreme circumstances, such as remarkably low temperatures or oxygen levels.
The temperature of the body lowers down while the metabolism slows down. This brings the body to a mere mode of maintenance. This means that the body is brought to a condition where it lives through the bare minimum for survival while dodging atrophy.
Such a phenomenon can be observed among many animals, such as mammals with warm blood. However, they can hardly be seen among primates. Dai Ji and Wang Hong, SIAT neuroscientists, planned to examine whether it can induce hypometabolism or hibernation among primates chemically. This was to be executed through chemical manipulation of hypothalamus neurons that handle thermoregulation and sleep.
The study was conducted among three male, young, and crab-eating monkeys. It was done in bost non-anesthetized and anesthetized conditions. The researchers applied drugs that were meant to enable certain brain-modified receptors.
The results were then observed using MRI. The team also assessed biochemical, physiological, and behavioral alterations.
The scientists discovered that a drug known as Clozapine N-oxide or CNO reliably caused hypothermia among awake and anesthetized macaques. However, among the anesthetized primates, the induced hypothermia led to a plummet in central body temperature. The scientists note how POA neurons play a crucial role in thermoregulation among primates.
They also observed behavioral changes among the primates and compared them with mice that had induced hypothermia. They noted how the mice had lower activity and decreased their heart rate to conserve the heat. The monkeys, however, had higher heart rates and activity. They also started shivering. Such findings show how thermoregulation is more intricate in primates compared to mice.
Wang notes how their work is the first to successfully show how hypothermia can be caused through specific neuronal alterations.
Such a model is a significant step forward in the long journey toward reaching human artificial hibernation.
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