This is specifically in reference to Starlink satellites. I have no idea how they could possibly work. How can thousands of videos, pictures, text, and music, be sent optically through space? I feel like it’s an impossible amount of data to transmit, other than the use of magic.
In: Physics
Optic fibers have this really cool property of being able to keep light inside them very well. They use it by exploiting the way light is reflected and refracted when moving between mediums.
So take any data you want, and write it down in bits of 0 and 1.
Now imagine we’re each at one end of a fiber, and every second I send a strong or weak flash of light. If it’s strong its a 1, weak is a 0.
That’s the basic principle. In effect we use all kind of neat technology to to this very very fast, transmitting up to several GBs of data every second. We can even use different “colors” of light to transmit multiple data stream at the same time.
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