Submitted by Calm-Confidence8429 t3_zwj7ah in space
kjpmi t1_j1v2k14 wrote
Reply to comment by Adeldor in do we really believe aliens can decode the golden records by Calm-Confidence8429
The odds that an intelligent alien race could even intercept it are remote. Think about Omouamua (however you spell that). Chances are an intelligent race wouldn’t detect the Voyager crafts AND be able to realize that they might not be natural until well after they were millions and millions of miles past their planet.
This_Username_42 t1_j1v5b5k wrote
Well, omoamumao wasn’t sending any signals out — voyager does (or did?) send out a radio signal
tritonice t1_j1v5t92 wrote
Both Voyagers communicate with Earth almost daily still to this day. Hopefully until at least 2025, but we are in the endgame on both.
The transmitters are 20w, and even if they could transmit for eternity, it currently takes a dish 70m in diameter to "hear" (they can array two 34m dishes still, but it's getting very hard even with that setup). Bad weather at a DSN site (Autstralia is the only one that has line of sight to V2) can actually wash out the signal. You literally could not hear its signals at light year distances because it would be too weak and blend with background noise.
Follow @nascom1 on Twitter. He is the source of most of this and is excellent!!
Nerull t1_j1v6497 wrote
Voyager will be completely dead tens of thousands of years before it reaches the proximity of another star..
kjpmi t1_j1vfprf wrote
In hundreds of thousands of years when they actually pass any potentially habitable star systems, they will have no longer been able to broadcast any signals for hundreds of thousands of years.
GuacamoleFrejole t1_j1vdyd4 wrote
But Voyager is/was sending RF signals, which a highly technologically advanced civilization may have abandoned eons ago.
This_Username_42 t1_j1vvrmb wrote
That’s extremely unlikely. They don’t have different photons than we do
[deleted] t1_j1xxf4i wrote
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DrLongIsland t1_j1v6wr4 wrote
And, conversely, the odds that an alien specie intelligent enough to intercept and recover it, would then be able to translate it at that point are close to 100%. Sure, maybe they'll need to call their equivalent of Jodie Foster and it would take them some time, if their systems are completely different than ours, but eventually they would almost certainly figure it out.
kjpmi t1_j1vf9r6 wrote
Exactly. The hard part is recognizing it and intercepting it, not deciphering it.
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