Why astronauts age slower in space: Heres how much younger stranded explorers will be when they return to Earth
It’s an entirely different kind of space age.Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are stranded at the International Space Station until at least February due to their faulty Boeing craft — but there’s one upside to their extended adventure in orbit.The pair will return a smidge younger than they would have been if they had stayed on Earth.That’s because the European Space Agency says that six months on the International Space Station (ISS) saves 0.005 seconds of aging.But while the pair may only shave a fraction of a second off their Earth age, the concept is still incredibly intriguing.
As Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity explains, the closer a person is moving towards the speed of light (almost 300 million meters per second), the quicker time passes and the slower age does.The ISS orbits around Earth at a speed of 27,500 kilometers per hour, according to the BBC.There is also gravitational time dilation, which ties into Einsten’s theory.
It causes slower aging the further away a person is from the Earth’s core due to weaker gravity and the planet’s curvature.The subtle changes in time due to gravity’s denser passage on the Earth’s surface are a major reason why experts call for the moon to be given its own time zone — as even the planet’s best atomic clocks will be off fractions of a second in time.Researchers at Texas A&M found this minor lag even affects people at the top of buildings and skyscrapers.
Regarding human age change, NASA previously studied the impacts of space by researching biological changes in twin astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly.While they both spent time on the ISS, Scott had spent about ten times longer in space as opposed to his brother Mark, who was born six minutes ahead of Scott.The study found Mark to be an additional five milliseconds older than his brother due to the extended time Scott had spent in space at higher rates of orbital speed among other factors.While in an astrophysical sense, ast...