Not sure if I used the right tag but I saw something about a space probe from the 70s malfunctioning and spouting gibberish that nasa managed to repair, but how do probes that are so incredibly far away transmit data back to earth?
In: Planetary Science
The same way Dish Antennas communicate with satellites.
When the ground stations need to communicate with a faraway probe, lets say Voyager, cause it is cool, they send a directed signal with a frequency of around 2.3Ghz (Infrared) towards the calculated future location of the satellite considering the time it takes for light to reach it. The biggest barrier the signal faces is our own atmosphere. Once the atmosphere is crossed, there is nothing really stopping the signal from reaching the Voyager. The Voyager can respond similarly by directing its signals to the future calculated location of earth.
The distance of a satellite from earth plays a much smaller role compared to the composition of the atmosphere around the ground station that day. Once you go through the atmosphere, the only problematic part is the dispersion of light, which can be remedied through strong directed signals and stronger receivers.
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