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Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
51–60 of 411 posts
Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#52Site is down? Archive: https://archive.is/55yNp Headline is also misleading. It will do so in November 2026, about a year from now.
>Site is down?
They got Slashdotted ;-)
Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#53Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#54How is the link with earth maintained at this distance? Is it really a powerful transmitter that sends signals without attenuation?
Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not useful, because the signal are too weak to be picked up probe to probe. On earth, the tiny signal from Voyager at this distance is picked up by dish the size of a football field; same with sending of the signal.
What if the probes carry smaller probes left behind at specific intervals that act as repeaters? These baby probes could unfold a larger spiderweb antenna the size of a tennis court.
The problem is each relay needs its own power source so it's not going to be as light and small as you would like. Solar power doesn't work very well outside of the solar system, or even really in the outer solar system.
On the plus side your big probe could push off of the small probe to give itself a further boost, also necessary because otherwise the small probes need thrusters to slow themselves to a stop.
Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not useful, because the signal are too weak to be picked up probe to probe. On earth, the tiny signal from Voyager at this distance is picked up by dish the size of a football field; same with sending of the signal.
Laser communication could potentially address some of those issues.
Maybe, but if your probe is heading directly towards another solar system then it will be backlit by its destination.
Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#57Not that we would literally do this with Voyager, but it makes me wonder at the potential utility of a string of probes, one sent every couple of [insert correct time interval, decades, centuries?], to effectively create a communication relay stretching out into deep space somewhere. My understanding with the Voyagers 1 and 2 is (a) they will run out of power before they would ever get far enough to benefit from a re…
Hmm, do you realize, that even if you have 1B probes everywhere. You're still bound by speed of light communication speed, right? It's faster than probe speed in this age, yeah. But still not enough, if we're talking distances to other specific planets, stars, etc. Two possible ways to solve this, humans will become immortal or speed of light bypass method will be discovered.
the post office has utility even if the messages have very high latency.
also if this probe network reduces the transmission costs to normal terrestrial levels (and not requiring , say, a 400kw tx dish..) it could drastically increases the utility of the link -- and all of this without discussing how much bandwidth a link network across the stars might possess compared to our current link to Voyager..
(this is all said with the presumption of a reason to have such distance communications channels.. )
Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#58Not that we would literally do this with Voyager, but it makes me wonder at the potential utility of a string of probes, one sent every couple of [insert correct time interval, decades, centuries?], to effectively create a communication relay stretching out into deep space somewhere. My understanding with the Voyagers 1 and 2 is (a) they will run out of power before they would ever get far enough to benefit from a re…
What you are describing has been proposed before, for example within context of projects like Breakthrough Starshot. In that the case the idea is to launch thousands of probes, each weighing only a few grams or less, and accelerating them to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light using solar sails and (powerful) earth-based lasers. The probes could reach alpha centauri within 20-30 years. There seems to be some debate though about whether cross-links between probes to enable relaying signals is ever practical from a power and mass perspective vs a single very large receiver on earth.
Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#59Not that we would literally do this with Voyager, but it makes me wonder at the potential utility of a string of probes, one sent every couple of [insert correct time interval, decades, centuries?], to effectively create a communication relay stretching out into deep space somewhere. My understanding with the Voyagers 1 and 2 is (a) they will run out of power before they would ever get far enough to benefit from a re…
Hmm, do you realize, that even if you have 1B probes everywhere. You're still bound by speed of light communication speed, right? It's faster than probe speed in this age, yeah. But still not enough, if we're talking distances to other specific planets, stars, etc. Two possible ways to solve this, humans will become immortal or speed of light bypass method will be discovered.
Seems like the problem OP is trying to solve for here is not latency, it's signal power and redundancy.
Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth
#60Not that we would literally do this with Voyager, but it makes me wonder at the potential utility of a string of probes, one sent every couple of [insert correct time interval, decades, centuries?], to effectively create a communication relay stretching out into deep space somewhere. My understanding with the Voyagers 1 and 2 is (a) they will run out of power before they would ever get far enough to benefit from a re…
Not useful, because the signal are too weak to be picked up probe to probe. On earth, the tiny signal from Voyager at this distance is picked up by dish the size of a football field; same with sending of the signal.
You could send a good amount of small probes and make them become the big antenna dish basically. As long as you cover the bases, you can have layers of "big antenna dishes" in onion layers.