how sattelites sent to space to take pictures send data back to earth?

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I was just reading a book to put my 4 year old to sleep, and there is a part where there is a satellite that took a picture of pluto, considering how far pluto is, how can the satellite send the images back to earth with that distance?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

When it comes to earth satellites they just use Kodak film and develop in a lab. I’m not joking

My dad worked for the ASA, essentially the military version of the NSA. He started as a cryptographer in the late 1950s but moved over to computer programming by the mid1960s. Once he told me, while drunk, about a project he worked on while at the pentagon. It was for the first spy satellites that the US used. I remember he told me that they were just really big film cameras and when all the film was used up they just dropped the film in a bucket from orbit and a plane would pick it up. I just figured he was drunk and pulling my leg.

Imagine my surprise when I was doing some googling on OPs question to find out that yes, the military had a series of film satellites where they literally just dropped the film in essentially a big bucket (some of which had “Classified” stenciled on them) from orbit with a parachute and a plane would snag it out of the sky before it landed. They used special 70mm Kodak film and the buckets would contain anywhere between 2 to 6 miles of film. Kodak had a lab set up that would only develop this film.

Anonymous 0 Comments

When it comes to earth satellites they just use Kodak film and develop in a lab. I’m not joking

My dad worked for the ASA, essentially the military version of the NSA. He started as a cryptographer in the late 1950s but moved over to computer programming by the mid1960s. Once he told me, while drunk, about a project he worked on while at the pentagon. It was for the first spy satellites that the US used. I remember he told me that they were just really big film cameras and when all the film was used up they just dropped the film in a bucket from orbit and a plane would pick it up. I just figured he was drunk and pulling my leg.

Imagine my surprise when I was doing some googling on OPs question to find out that yes, the military had a series of film satellites where they literally just dropped the film in essentially a big bucket (some of which had “Classified” stenciled on them) from orbit with a parachute and a plane would snag it out of the sky before it landed. They used special 70mm Kodak film and the buckets would contain anywhere between 2 to 6 miles of film. Kodak had a lab set up that would only develop this film.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Adding to what has been said, physics offers somewhat a hand by how free-space path loss works (where path is the communication or signal path).

With wireless communication, your power (density) is divided by four every time you double the distance from the transmitter, no matter if you go from 10 to 20 feet or from 1 billion to two billion miles. This is a disadvantage on shorter distances, compared to a wired transmission, but starts to be a noticeable advantage on very long paths. Not that it makes it any less amazing to reconstruct a signal that weak once it gets back to Earth.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Adding to what has been said, physics offers somewhat a hand by how free-space path loss works (where path is the communication or signal path).

With wireless communication, your power (density) is divided by four every time you double the distance from the transmitter, no matter if you go from 10 to 20 feet or from 1 billion to two billion miles. This is a disadvantage on shorter distances, compared to a wired transmission, but starts to be a noticeable advantage on very long paths. Not that it makes it any less amazing to reconstruct a signal that weak once it gets back to Earth.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You know how you can communicate over a noisy line N as in Nancy, S as in Samuel, and so on. You are essentially trading speed for clarity. They do the same when communicating over long distance. The longer the distance the closer the useful signal to the background (*) noise so it’s more noisy. As the noise increases they compensate by slowing down transmission.

(*) You can’t get rid of background noise because it’s produced by the heat of electronics. They cool down electronics in deep space network antennas cryogenically but there is a practical limit how low they can go.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You know how you can communicate over a noisy line N as in Nancy, S as in Samuel, and so on. You are essentially trading speed for clarity. They do the same when communicating over long distance. The longer the distance the closer the useful signal to the background (*) noise so it’s more noisy. As the noise increases they compensate by slowing down transmission.

(*) You can’t get rid of background noise because it’s produced by the heat of electronics. They cool down electronics in deep space network antennas cryogenically but there is a practical limit how low they can go.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You know how you can communicate over a noisy line N as in Nancy, S as in Samuel, and so on. You are essentially trading speed for clarity. They do the same when communicating over long distance. The longer the distance the closer the useful signal to the background (*) noise so it’s more noisy. As the noise increases they compensate by slowing down transmission.

(*) You can’t get rid of background noise because it’s produced by the heat of electronics. They cool down electronics in deep space network antennas cryogenically but there is a practical limit how low they can go.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The answer to this question depends on the type of satellite used. If the satellite is a deep space probe, then the images can be sent back to Earth using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves that can travel through space and can be received by antennas on Earth. If the satellite is a telescope, then the images can be sent back to Earth using optical communication, which involves using lasers to transmit the images.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The answer to this question depends on the type of satellite used. If the satellite is a deep space probe, then the images can be sent back to Earth using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves that can travel through space and can be received by antennas on Earth. If the satellite is a telescope, then the images can be sent back to Earth using optical communication, which involves using lasers to transmit the images.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The answer to this question depends on the type of satellite used. If the satellite is a deep space probe, then the images can be sent back to Earth using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves that can travel through space and can be received by antennas on Earth. If the satellite is a telescope, then the images can be sent back to Earth using optical communication, which involves using lasers to transmit the images.