Ernie Wright wrote in message ...

a = f / M = 1.7 * 10^-13 m / s^2 = 0.00000000000017 m / s^2

Pretty small. If the sun were a car powered by the gravitational
attraction of Alpha Centauri, it would go from 0 to 60 (miles per hour)
in about 5 million years.


Ernie,

That is a seriously tiny acceleration and for a massive body like the
Sun, I'd expect that sort of result but thanks for putting some hard
numbers to illustrate it all - makes it so much easier to visualise.

However, in relation to my interstellar journey "blueprint" (or
proposal to a far future generation!) I am concerned with
gravitational accelerations of tiny comets (effectively infinitesimal
*particles* of negligible mass in comparison with the mass of a star)
which will be perturbed (gravitationally accelerated) from a fraction
of the total Sun-Alpha Centauri distance.

Of course, looking across the other side of the interstellar "pond" we
find Proxima Centauri (with just 12% of Sun's mass) sharing a definite
common proper motion with Alpha Centauri A+B, and its placed at a huge
range of 13,000 AUs from the primary pair.

Its all going to be a *conjecture* sort of result I think...! But the
beauty of the "Aster-Com" starship concept is you can turn back at any
time you run into vaccuums with regards to resource availability on
comets/planetoids towards Alpha Centauri!

I wonder if its possible to see a mirage ahead from the control room
of a water-starved starship... LOL!!!

Abdul