Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» What happens to radio and TV transmission signals? Do they go up and out there and bounce around somewhere forever? Do they disappear?
Tricky question to answer. Unlike many movies porteay, many of our signals don't go out into space until they reach a receiver (aliens?). Most never make it past earth's ionosphere. They're not meant to (broadcasted on the wrong frequency). They're meant to be picked up right here at home. Even if a signal were at a frequency that could penetrate the ionosphere, it'd have to enough power and be clear enough to reach "out there". For example, the most distant human-made object is Voyager I, which has a transmission power of about 23 Watts, and is still detectable by radio telescopes 125 AU away. Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, is about 2,200 times more distant. Since the strength of a light signal decreases with distance, one would need a transmission power of more than 110 million Watts to transmit a signal to Proxima Centauri with the strength of Voyager to Earth. Current TV broadcasts are limited to around 5 million Watts for UHF stations... and many stations aren’t nearly that powerful. Beyond a few light years, our leaky TV broadcasts are likely undetectable. As we’ve switched to digital television and lower transmission powers they’ve become even harder to detect. They just fade away.
There was a very cute movie based on the premise that the signals just go up up up and away and on a planet in crisis they captured a TV show about space travelers who were heros. I think Tim Allen starred in it. So the alien creatures I think brought the entire crew to their planet to save them and I think they did.
Also there was a movie where father and son communicated through time with the use of a radio transmitter. They were both buffs and the grown son starts receiving signals that his deceased father had transmitted decades ago. It was a really nifty movie. Pure fantasy but a very nice thought. Thank you for your informative reply Shuhak.
This post was edited by RosieG at December 2, 2019 12:39 PM MST
Shuhak 