3 ms·
In the case of no line-of-sight, yes, but lasers would be more effective.
by hexbinencoded 6y ago
In the case of no line-of-sight, yes, but lasers would be more effective.
- yodon 6y agoLasers are great for transmitting, but not great for being received at interstellar distances. The person (being?) at the other end is looking at your solar system through a telescope that they use as part of their photo detector communication system. There's a huge bright star they can see (the sun that you and the planet your laser is on are orbiting), and there is this little tiny laser also shining towards them, its beam completely hidden in the light from the star. It doesn't matter how big your laser is, from a practical standpoint it's still tiny compared to the brightness of that sun you're orbiting. This problem is well understood and is why SETI primarily uses radio telescopes rather than regular optical telescopes to look for signals.