The Real Stars and Scale of Sci-fi

This video takes a look at the location of several sci-fi stories, including Star Trek, Dune, and Known Space by Larry Niven. In an attempt to give our galaxy some sense of scale, the illustrations in the video show scaled differences in relation to Earth. You might be better able to realize the distance between planets and stars.

Considering the speed of light is 671,000,000 miles per hour, it would take us 4.5 years to reach the closest star system to Earth – Alpha Centauri. Traveling across space in any meaningful time frame would require faster than light travel, something almost every sci-fi space-faring story utilizes.