Sphere of influence!!

After they leave LV-426 Lambert says 10 months to get back to earth. The Zeta Reticuli star system that they are supposedly near or in is about 39 light years from earth. How they are achieving such a quick journey is a mystery.

It has to be ten months! This would be the ONLY logical estimate. Period. The film made it clear that they were on the Cusp of Zeta2reticuli.

@wheresbasky? Actually, that scene in the end of Alien 3 is a recording from the end of Alien that Ripley made. If you remember back to Aliens Gorman wanted the marines to listen to Ripley's logs from her escape from the Nostromo. I hope this helps. :)

Oh, but as far as your other part of your question, I'm just as lost as you are. Hahaha.

@anovak1979, yep that's right. I always assumed it was a reference back to the remainder of the escape pod

Guys I think the recording was a A referance to Alien b Was a point to say Ripley has died (signing out) Sparky is the one to ask his knowledge on all things Alien is amazing

Zeta Ret 37 LY or 11.35 parsecs. 10 months travel time from their course change from Thedus to Earth. Lambert says they are roughly half way home. Thedus would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 74 LYs from Sol. If the speed of light in a vacuum is 186000 miles per second or 669.6 million miles per hour. In a standard year moving at just C or the speed of light the Nostromo could cover 5,785,344,000,000 miles. If Zeta Reticulae is 37 LYs from Sol that's 214,057,728,000,000 Two hundred fourteen trillion, fifty seven billion seven hundred and twenty eight million miles from Sol. If the Nostromo can do that distance in just 10 months (at just C that's 4,821,120,000,000 miles in 10 30 day months it would have taken them 444.48 months just to reach our solar system) she would have had to accelerate to more than 10 times that velocity to accomplish that goal, that's some incredible feat of engineering

Zeta Ret 37 LY or 11.35 parsecs. 10 months travel time from their course change from Thedus to Earth. Lambert says they are roughly half way home. Thedus would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 74 LYs from Sol. If the speed of light in a vacuum is 186000 miles per second or 669.6 million miles per hour. In a standard year moving at just C or the speed of light the Nostromo could cover 5,785,344,000,000 miles. If Zeta Reticulae is 37 LYs from Sol that's 214,057,728,000,000 Two hundred fourteen trillion, fifty seven billion seven hundred and twenty eight million miles from Sol. If the Nostromo can do that distance in just 10 months (at just C that's 4,821,120,000,000 miles in 10 30 day months it would have taken them 444.48 months just to reach our solar system) she would have had to accelerate to more than 44.4 times that velocity to accomplish that goal, that's some incredible feat of engineering.

@Ghost Solitare Wow that's a lot of numbers!!! I take it they have not got FTL capabilities? so What Tech are they using to cover that kind of distance in such a short time frame @ Anovak 1979 thanks for clearing that up!!! bit disappointed that it was just a recording,thought it was a nice touch that it appeared to be a signal drifting through space time that caught up with Ripley at the end of her story! After all that though how come if LV426 was surveyed(was brought up during Ripley's debrief at company HQ in Aliens) why didn't they spot the derelict? did this ever get cleared up in other posts?

Well if they are going Faster than the speed of light then they do have FTL capabilities.

so do they have to jump from Plaid to ludicrus speed (spaceballs reference there)

so how many light years out has mankind got then, do we think?

Did anyone wonder how gravity was achieved on the Nostromo? These are just things we must accept and move on else the movie will be 35732908503 hours long and mostly talk of equations. Man, I sure don't want to see a math class in 3D : )

Ghost Solitaire [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fI8834iCgo]Blinded me with Science[/url]

I don't know such stuff. I just do eyes.

I find all this SO many light years from home and FLT and time dilation VERY scary. I'm sure this will be factored in to the film's more tense moments.

so the reason they managed to travel great distances through space, in such a short time was purely clever editing at Fox!!! I think NASA could learn a thing or two from them!!!