How far have our television transmissions travelled into space???

Question

Second question is there a web site that shows the distance covered by our tv signals??

Answer 1

You are probably thinking about how far old TV shows like 'Gun Smoke' have traveled in outer space, and what any aliens thought about us who received the signals.

But TV signals began long before TV entertainment began. It took many years to figure out the technology to be used in ordinary broadcast TV.

In 1925 John Logie Baird transmitted the first experimental television signal. [1]

So, taking 1925 as the starting point, not figuring in months, 81 years have passed since TV signals started going out into space.

Since TV and radio waves travel at the speed of light, they have traveled 81 light years out into space. This is also assuming that the signal was not absorbed by dust in space. The first signals were so weak that they probably died out in the noise of background radiation before reaching Mars, let alone traveling for billions of miles into space and having the power to be received by any aliens out there.

Be that as it may, no TV signals, however strong, could be further than 81 light years out there.

The nearest stars, according to Space.com:
"The three nearest known stars are gravitationally bound in a system commonly called Alpha Centauri. The two larger stars, said to be Sun-like, are named Alpha Centauri A and B. The nearest to us is the littlest and is called Proxima Centauri. It is classified as a red dwarf and contains just a fraction of the mass of our Sun.

The three-star system is 4.36 light-years away, meaning light requires 4.36 years to travel from the stars to Earth, and so we see them as they existed 4.36 years ago."

And they are seeing us as we were 4.36 years ago.

If there were aliens in that system, They are now enjoying the TV shows that we broadcast in 2001. Maybe they like the Summer Olympics. I wonder what they will they will think of 'Grey's Anatomy?'

;-D If you want to see some early TV shows, check TV Dawn. [2]

Answer 2

The first regularly scheduled television service in the United States began on July 2, 1928. The Federal Radio Commission authorized C.F. Jenkins to broadcast from experimental station W3XK in a suburb of Washington, D.C.

So televison transmissions have gone out into space at the speed of light for just over 78 years - 78 light years is a long way.

If you want to see how far that is check out...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/playspace/spacemap/index.shtml

Answer 3

The first Television broadcast was from the 1936 Olympics, so a little over 70 light years.

Answer 4

Great. Aliens are picking up the first TV shows and judging us by Milton Bearle in a dress and Howdy Doody.

Answer 5

so a techniques the furthest we've long gone is around 3 hundred,000 kilometers that's a coarse determine for the area from the Earth to the Moon. If we had the potential to return and forth quicker in area or lengthen our foodstuff and oxygen furnish could could pass lots further.

Answer 6

not sure but if someone millions of miles a way look at the earth he would be seeing the past so some bobby some where could be seeing the world at the begging .so the past is still to come

freaky a

Answer 7

the number of light years away since it was transmitted. if it was transmitted in 1996, the signal has traveled 10 light years away by now

Answer 8

A long way, that is why no aliens have attempted to contact us!

Answer 9

about 79 light years. tjhat is about 463,389,984,000,000 miles

Answer 10

a long way