But aren’t there like a bunch of little rocks from like asteroids and stuff? That’s what I never got even for launches from earth, why isn’t everything up there just getting peppered nonstop from debris. I guess space is really just that empty
Debris like that will tend to concentrate around a gravitational focus. There’s a lot more of the space rocks and stuff you’re worried about within the inner solar system than towards the edges where there’s little gravity to keep those objects from falling further into the solar system. That’s why JWST had micro meteor impact damage so early after its launch.
How the actual fuck is a signal being sent 24 billion kilometres? That’s nuts
I just don’t get how it doesn’t get destroyed by random space shit. I get space is infinitely empty but it’s also infinitely full too, right…
Infinitely empty AFAIK.
Interstellar space is similar to atoms and the electron cloud, some tiny amount of matter and a whole heap of SFA.
(Someone get at me with the actual numbers, but I’m leaning toward space being more sparse by percentage than an atom.)
The main solar system objects were accounted for and closely avoided, now it’s a very roomy area to float through alone.
But aren’t there like a bunch of little rocks from like asteroids and stuff? That’s what I never got even for launches from earth, why isn’t everything up there just getting peppered nonstop from debris. I guess space is really just that empty
There’s rocks, but only where there’s something. There’s a lot more nothing.
Debris like that will tend to concentrate around a gravitational focus. There’s a lot more of the space rocks and stuff you’re worried about within the inner solar system than towards the edges where there’s little gravity to keep those objects from falling further into the solar system. That’s why JWST had micro meteor impact damage so early after its launch.
Apparently it’s on a 12 foot antenna. That’s crazy. I thought for sure they’d be communicating on a much larger dish.
I’d wager the data rate is pretty low, to increase the fidelity.
12 foot antenna
Good band name
Get a big enough dish and you can do wild shit. Arecibo observatory was able to use radar to map the surface of Venus to like 1km resolution.