Radio Signals and Mars

Greetings to all ...

My wife and I got into a discussion last nite after looking at Mars
through the telescope. A question arised and we were wondering
if someone could answer it ...

If a radio signal travels at the speed of light (186,200 miles per
second), then how long would it take it to get to Mars - from Earth?

36,000,000 miles is a very long way for a radio signal to travel


Thanks in advance!

--
Phil

"Phil" wrote in message
...
Greetings to all ...

My wife and I got into a discussion last nite after looking at Mars
through the telescope. A question arised and we were wondering
if someone could answer it ...

If a radio signal travels at the speed of light (186,200 miles per
second), then how long would it take it to get to Mars - from Earth?

36,000,000 miles is a very long way for a radio signal to travel

(36,000,000 miles)/(186,200 miles/sec) = 193.34 seconds

Or about 3.2 minutes.

Radio signals are just electromagnetic in nature just as
light is (light is just higher in frequency than what we
consider to be radio waves). So consider how much further
the "signals" from the distant stars have come compared to
one from Mars.

"Phil" wrote in message
...
Greetings to all ...

My wife and I got into a discussion last nite after looking at Mars
through the telescope. A question arised and we were wondering
if someone could answer it ...

If a radio signal travels at the speed of light (186,200 miles per
second), then how long would it take it to get to Mars - from Earth?

36,000,000 miles is a very long way for a radio signal to travel


Thanks in advance!

--
Phil

Simply divide the distance by the speed to get time. 36,000,000 miles /
186,200 miles/sec = 193 seconds, or a little over 3 minutes. This distance
is very small compared to the signals still being received from the Voyger
probes now beyond the edge of the solar system. And that is very small
compared to the radio signals being received through radiotelescopes from
objects billions of light-years away.

Hap Griffin

Thanks Greg and Hap for your quick responses!


If a radio signal travels at the speed of light (186,200 miles per
second), then how long would it take it to get to Mars - from Earth?

36,000,000 miles is a very long way for a radio signal to travel

Hello Hap

And that is very small compared to the radio signals being received
through radiotelescopes from objects billions of light-years away.


I could only imagine the distances involved ... I have been very
interested how science and radio telescopes make images
from radio signals - fascinating!


Is the Quasar still the furthest object known? If so how far from
Earth?

Phil wrote:

Is the Quasar still the furthest object known? If so how far from
Earth?

Some quasars are among the furthest discrete observable objects, but
space at similar distances is also populated by young galaxies.
Depending on how you define "object", though, the CMBR (cosmic
microwave background radiation) might count as the furthest, as it
represents the point in time when the universe became transparent to
radiation nearly fourteen billion years ago, therefore nearly
fourteen billion light-years away.

--
Odysseus

In message , Odysseus
writes
Phil wrote:

Is the Quasar still the furthest object known? If so how far from
Earth?

Some quasars are among the furthest discrete observable objects, but
space at similar distances is also populated by young galaxies.
Depending on how you define "object", though, the CMBR (cosmic
microwave background radiation) might count as the furthest, as it
represents the point in time when the universe became transparent to
radiation nearly fourteen billion years ago, therefore nearly
fourteen billion light-years away.

One problem with finding the "most distant" object is that the estimates
of the size and age of the universe keep changing :-)
For instance, looking through Andrew Yee's posts (which I find are worth
keeping) there's a report of the discovery of a quasar in galaxy
J1148+5251, estimated to have formed 870 million years after the Big
Bang and to be 12.8 billion light years away. This was in July 2003.
But in March 2002 (i.e. before the recent WMAP findings) a galaxy formed
780 million years after the Bang was estimated to be 15.5 billion years
away. This was a normal galaxy.
--
"Forty millions of miles it was from us, more than forty millions of miles of
void"

Is the Quasar still the furthest object
known? If so how far from Earth?

Ckeck out this image from the Hubble Deep Field. The arrow points to a
fairly ordinary-looking galaxy at extreme redshift, placing it even
farther back than the quasars-

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960628.html
oc

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