Riding Light (2015)
• January 1st, 2015 • 0h 45min
Animation, Documentary
Overview
In our terrestrial view of things, the speed of light seems incredibly fast. But as soon as you view it against the vast distances of the universe, it's unfortunately very slow. This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective. Liberties were taken with certain things like the alignment of planets and asteroids, as well as ignoring the laws of relativity concerning what a photon actually "sees" or how time is experienced at the speed of light, but overall the size and distances of all the objects were kept as accurate as possible. It was also decided to end the animation just past Jupiter to keep the running length below an hour.
Make sure to check your pop-up blocker!!
Trailer
Similar Movies
A Brief History of Time
Released on: 1991-10-01
Documentary
This shows physicist Stephen Hawking's life as he deals with the ALS that renders him immobile and u...
Searching for Planet 9
Released on: 2022-09-17
Documentary, TV Movie
At the edge of our solar system supposedly lies an immense planet. Five to ten times the size of the...
Venus: Death of a Planet
Released on: 2021-08-28
Documentary, TV Movie
Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored life-giving habitats similar to those on the early Ea...
Cosmic Voyage
Released on: 1996-08-09
Documentary
The Academy Award® nominee Cosmic Voyage combines live action with state-of-the-art computer-generat...
Searching for Skylab, America's Forgotten Triumph
Released on: 2019-02-08
Documentary, History, Family
The first American space station Skylab is found in pieces scattered in Western Australia. Putting t...
Miniverse
Released on: 2017-04-17
Documentary
What if you could get behind the wheel and race through space? We scale down the Solar System to the...
Cassini's Grand Finale
Released on: 2017-04-07
Documentary, Animation
To help visualize the dramatic final chapter in Cassini's remarkable story, NASA's Jet Propulsion La...
Living Worlds
Released on: 2021-11-01
Documentary
What forms might life take in the Solar System and beyond? In the Academy's newest original planetar...
Planets of the Sun
Released on: 1985-01-01
Documentary, Family
An Educational Favorites VHS from the NATURE SERIES featuring Leonard Nimoy
Physics at Half Past Nine
Released on: 1971-01-01
Documentary
A physicist, a director of popular-science films, and a sports fan talk about the structure of the a...
The Mystery of Chaco Canyon
Released on: 1999-01-01
Documentary, History
Chaco Canyon, located in northwest New Mexico, is perhaps the only site in the world constructed in ...
Prehistoric Astronomers
Released on: 2007-01-01
Documentary
Cave paintings and lunar calendars exist in the caves and remains of prehistoric hunters studied rec...
Cielo
Released on: 2017-10-06
Documentary
The first feature from Alison McAlpine is a dialogue with the heavens—in this case, the heavens abov...
Take the World From Another Point of View
Released on: 1973-01-01
Documentary
In 1973 Yorkshire public television made a short film of the Nobel laureate while he was there. The ...
Shadow Chasers
Released on: 2000-09-23
Documentary
This feature-length documentary is a portrait of eclipse chasers, people for whom solar eclipses - a...
The Conquest of Light
Released on: 1960-08-13
Documentary
The film discusses the evolution and potential of using light waves, particularly coherent light, fo...
Stephen Hawking and The Theory of Everything
Released on: 2009-03-24
Documentary
Twenty years after A Brief History of Time flummoxed the world with its big numbers and black holes,...
The End of Quantum Reality
Released on: 2020-01-16
Documentary
Almost one hundred years ago, the project to reduce the world to mathematical physics failed suddenl...
Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know
Released on: 2020-03-18
Documentary
Black holes stand at the limit of what we can know. To explore that edge of knowledge, the Event Hor...