Astronaut Ages Slower

Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly is 0.01 seconds younger that he would have been if he hadn’t gone to space, according to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tys

20:21 06 March 2016

Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly was so excited to be home, receiving countless “welcome home” messages on his return from the International Space Station on Tuesday. However, one message gave him more reason to celebrate. According to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Kellly is officially 1/100 seconds younger than he would have been if he hadn’t left for space.

 

Tyson explained: “Relativity tells us that when we (in this case meaning all of us on Earth) observe someone/something else that is moving relative to us (in this case the International Space Station ), we will see time running slower for the moving people/things.”

 

“It's called time 'dilation' because you can think of the moving person's time as having 'expanded' (dilated) since less time passes for them than for us."

 

He added that a complex equation proves that one year in orbit is equivalent to 0.9999999997 years on Earth so while the rest of us experienced a year, Kelly experienced just a tiny bit less than one full Earth year.