3 ms·
This is a ridiculous question: would any of these transmissions, via VHF or satellite uplink, have been capable of escaping our solar system and be receivable
by js2 8y ago
This is a ridiculous question: would any of these transmissions, via VHF or satellite uplink, have been capable of escaping our solar system and be receivable by some distant intelligent life in some distant solar system? Or would the signal be completely lost to background solar radiation or otherwise simply not be capable of transmitting that far?
How much of what's transmitted around the Earth escapes?
- tim333 8y agoWell, the signal escapes but would be very hard to pick out and very weak. You'd probably have to have something like a better version of the radio telescope they used to get a black hole image. It's hard to say it would be impossible though.
- m463 8y agoI've always wondered about this subject and I have a hypothesis: civilizations only broadcast recognizable signals for a short time. Then as radio becomes more sophisticated, the signals become harder to receive and be recognized. Over time, radio becomes more efficient, so signals will be more directional, lower power, and compressed. That means you have to be in the right place with the right coding scheme otherwise the signal won't be received, or will look like noise.
- scarecrowbob 8y agoI like the idea of a sci fi story where someone sends a ship at faster-than radio speeds to recover old transmissions from earth.
- jpmattia 8y agoIIRC, Sagan specifically mentioned that our radio signals are being beamed out into space (long ago, in the TV series Cosmos.) The probability of decoding NTSC signals (ie, the old SD standard) without prior knowledge is probably going to be better than decoding the current digital MPEG broadcast standard. So the aliens have about 50 years of signals to look at before it suddenly looks like we encrypted everything. I hope they like reruns of Mr Ed.