The Empire strikes back...but with a couple of sci-fi slip-ups

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In the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader meets with the Emperor Palpatine via hologram. Despite being vast galactic distances apart, their conversation flows surprisingly well, without any communication delay. In reality, that would be impossible, says Skelton. To illustrate this, she uses the example of Voyager 1, a space probe that is currently the most distant human-made object from Earth. Communicating with it involves sending radio signals, which are electromagnetic waves that travel at 300,000 kilometres per second. Since Voyager 1 is 24 billion kilometres away, a message sent today takes about 22.5 hours to arrive. Real-time chats across galaxies may not be possible, but a little creative licence is all part of the magic of sci-fi.

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