Re: [OT] Friday the 13th
* Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> [2009 Feb 11 09:31 -0600]:
> On 02/11/2009 09:18 AM, Hal Vaughan wrote:
>> On Wednesday 11 February 2009, Peter Hugosson-Miller wrote:
> [snip]
>>> I think Bill Watterson put it best: "The surest sign that intelligent
>>> life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to
>>> contact us."
>>
>> How far out would broadcasts of "The Gong Show" reached by now? Heck,
>> we're lucky they haven't lobbed a couple of singularities into the
>> Earth by now.
>
> I read (somewhere, last year) that few if any general broadcast radio
> waves make it out of the magnetosphere. Thus, /Single Female Lawyer/
> could never actually reach Omicron Persei 8.
Most hams know that moon-bounce (EME or earth-moon-earth)
communications are certainly possible at 144 MHz and I believe that the
moon lies beyond the magnetosphere. FM brodcasts are lower in
frequency but also likely to get past the magnetosphere. TV channels 7
and higher are higher yet in frequency and definitely able to reach at
least the other planets. What is unknown is whether those frequencies
can propagate past the solar system or galaxy boundaries.
Also, the signals aren't focused in any one particular direction except
toward the Earth's horizon and likely don't have the necessary power
density that would allow the signals to be useful much beyond our solar
system. Odds are that the world will long have been consumed by the
sun when it becomes a red giant before any intelligent life notices our
stream of broadcasting signals and then figures out how to decode them
and where they came from. When they get here there will be nothing
left but a lifeless rock orbiting a white dwarf.
- Nate >>
--
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."
Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://n0nb.us/index.html
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