3 ms·

Am I the only one that sits and thinks "wait, I can barely get my local AM station to come in clear enough to be understood - how could any signal possibly be d

by ecaron 16y ago

Am I the only one that sits and thinks "wait, I can barely get my local AM station to come in clear enough to be understood - how could any signal possibly be distinguishable beyond 1 lightyear?"

btipling 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-of-sight_propagation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-of-sight_propagation
ANH 16y ago
In addition to line-of-sight, your AM station is transmitting more or less omnidirectionally. Significant gains (pun intended) can be had by narrowing your beam. Check out the Link Budget Equation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_budget
Udo 16y ago
No, and you're absolutely right, too. The human radiosphere might technically be 200 light years across, but that doesn't mean a meaningful amount of data could be extracted from it. Yes, we are putting out a steady hum of energy, but it's hardly announcing our presence. Were it not for high energy radar systems deployed on Earth, we could not even detect a civilization down here from any point in our own solar system, much less decipher any of the data being transferred. And as our civilization matures, the amount of energy radiated into space is actually shrinking. That said, 200 light years is an enormous size. Everything that is large enough to take up more than one pixel on the map of our galaxy if freaking huge! People may disagree about the factual relevance of the radio bubble, but it's still immensely cool that we managed to project something this big out there into the world. Looking at this beautiful image of the Milky Way and seeing the unstable little flicker centered on our humble home, I can't help but wonder how many other radiospheres are out there and when they might finally overlap with ours (if they haven't already).
- alexqgb 16y ago
  That was my thought too. Given the size of the galaxy, the fact that we registered at all a view of the entire thing is, to my mind, astonishing. Go humans.
- jdelanoy 16y ago
  An intelligent race which knows anything about stars would note that Sol has a disproportionately large output in the radio spectrum. This would likely attract considerable attention and debate as to the cause. Careful analysis would reveal a very precise and regular Doppler shift lasting approximately 365.25 days...

by ecaron 16y ago

Am I the only one that sits and thinks "wait, I can barely get my local AM station to come in clear enough to be understood - how could any signal possibly be distinguishable beyond 1 lightyear?"

btipling 16y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-of-sight_propagation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-of-sight_propagation

ANH 16y ago

In addition to line-of-sight, your AM station is transmitting more or less omnidirectionally. Significant gains (pun intended) can be had by narrowing your beam. Check out the Link Budget Equation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_budget

Udo 16y ago

No, and you're absolutely right, too. The human radiosphere might technically be 200 light years across, but that doesn't mean a meaningful amount of data could be extracted from it. Yes, we are putting out a steady hum of energy, but it's hardly announcing our presence. Were it not for high energy radar systems deployed on Earth, we could not even detect a civilization down here from any point in our own solar system, much less decipher any of the data being transferred. And as our civilization matures, the amount of energy radiated into space is actually shrinking. That said, 200 light years is an enormous size. Everything that is large enough to take up more than one pixel on the map of our galaxy if freaking huge! People may disagree about the factual relevance of the radio bubble, but it's still immensely cool that we managed to project something this big out there into the world. Looking at this beautiful image of the Milky Way and seeing the unstable little flicker centered on our humble home, I can't help but wonder how many other radiospheres are out there and when they might finally overlap with ours (if they haven't already).

alexqgb 16y ago
That was my thought too. Given the size of the galaxy, the fact that we registered at all a view of the entire thing is, to my mind, astonishing. Go humans.
jdelanoy 16y ago
An intelligent race which knows anything about stars would note that Sol has a disproportionately large output in the radio spectrum. This would likely attract considerable attention and debate as to the cause. Careful analysis would reveal a very precise and regular Doppler shift lasting approximately 365.25 days...