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I had posted a similar question on another forum but didn't get much of a discussion. I'm interested to know what people here think.
So consider a spaceship midway between stars A and B and initially at rest in the reference frame of the stars. The ship then accelerates away from A to some fraction of the speed of light in a short time so it is still more or less midway between the stars (I'm thinking the details of this are not significant to the discussion). In the ship's reference frame, the distance between A and B is now less than it was before due to length contraction. Is it possible that in its reference frame the ship is now closer to A than before it started moving? That is, its motion moves it away from A but due to length contraction it is actually closer? That seems like a strange sequence of events.
So consider a spaceship midway between stars A and B and initially at rest in the reference frame of the stars. The ship then accelerates away from A to some fraction of the speed of light in a short time so it is still more or less midway between the stars (I'm thinking the details of this are not significant to the discussion). In the ship's reference frame, the distance between A and B is now less than it was before due to length contraction. Is it possible that in its reference frame the ship is now closer to A than before it started moving? That is, its motion moves it away from A but due to length contraction it is actually closer? That seems like a strange sequence of events.