How do we communicate with space probes from so far away?

376 viewsOtherPlanetary Science

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

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

We use [absolutely enormous satellite dishes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Deep_Space_Network). Think of how big the satellite dish for satellite TV is. Now imagine one 70m across!

Being so big, the dishes amplify the signal enough that we can communicate with the probe from so far away.

[NASA lets you see what these dishes are talking to](https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html), looks like it’s listening to Voyager 1 in Canberra right now (VGR1)

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