Quote:
Originally Posted by Yellow
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me and a friend did some theory crafting and i forgot the equations we built but we were assuming many things but hell in theory crafting its all assumption. well we figured that at the speed of radio waves there is a chance that they have yet to even go very far in space relatively... like possibly not even out of our solar system and for sure not into another.
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Given radio waves are essentially photons (to give it the particle name in the wave particle duality) travelling at the speed of light with wavelengths about 30cm and up, they would most certainly have left in the solar system in the approx. 90 years we have been broadcasting them. The closest 50 stars indeed lie within 16 ly of the Sun so they'll be currently getting blasted by 1994 hits like "The Sign" by Ace of Base and "The Power of Love" by Celine Dion (shudder!) at 100000 watts on the AM band. Since the strength of the signal declines as 1/r^2 then 100000 watts radiated power at say 1km from the transmitter would be 1/(16ly*9,460,800,000,000km/ly)^2 = 6.6x10^-15W when they are received, assuming no intervening dust - given there are amateur SETI receivers that can receive in the order of 10^-23 watts/sq meter I'm sure any aliens with a basic radio astronomy set would be blown out of their seat.
While interstellar dust will block radio (so anyone in line of sight of earth but behind a dust cloud won't see it) it won't 'slow it down' by any measurable amount. In fact the radio would have travelled the roughly 100AU = 1.58128588 × 10-3 ly to the heliopause in about 83 minutes...
That being the case, the multi-steller combined battle fleet should be arriving at any moment to destroy any lingering trace of Celine Dion from the Universe, which in my opinion is fully justified.
Regards,
Mg
PS Can you tell work is a little slow this afternoon?
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