In a bizarre repercussion of Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, objects traveling close to the speed of light appear flipped over.
The Special Theory of Relativity, or special relativity for short, describes what happens to objects traveling at close to the speed of light. In particular, it discusses two major repercussions of moving so quickly. One is that time would clearly appear to pass more slowly for the object traveling close to the speed of light relative to slower moving bodies around it. This is rooted in a phenomenon called "time dilation," which also leads to the famous Twin Paradox, has been proven experimentally and is even considered when building certain kinds of technology. Global positioning survey (GPS) satellites in orbit, for instance, have to account for time dilation when providing accurate navigation data.
Another consequence is what we call length contraction. "Suppose a rocket whizzes past us at 90% of the speed of light," Peter Schattschneider, a professor of physics at TU Wien, the Vienna University of Technology, said in a statement. "For us, it no longer has the same length as before it took off, but is 2.3 times shorter."
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