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Voyager 1 is still transmitting from beyond the heliosphere on 22 watts — less power than the bulb in your hallway — and the engineers who built it in the 1970s never expected we'd still be listening half a century later (spacedaily.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/space@beehaw.org
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[–] 48 points 5 months ago (5 children)

The bulb in my hallway is 3.2w. Still impressive though.

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  • [–] 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

    The beamwidth of Voyager 1's antenna is about 0.5 degrees. In practical terms, that's very narrow, about an 8 metre wide beam at a kilometre distance.

    At its current distance, by the time the beam reaches Earth it is 224 million kilometres wide, 1.5x the distance from the Earth to the sun.

    Now imagine the light from a car's taillights lighting up the back wall of a garage as it reverses in. Then spread that same amount of light out over that 224 million km wide beamwidth. That's what Voyager is putting out and what the Deep Space Network dishes have to listen for.

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