As a ship gets farther from earth, it's radio transmission beome more gapped - so if a spaceship were to continuously transmit, what would happen to signal we receive? Would it be constant as well because the signal would catch up with itself or would it become slower?
2007-08-13 01:59:03 · 7 answers · asked by Kemikal 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
It's not quite clear what you are asking here.
If the spaceship is moving away from us, the wavelength of the radio waves will be slightly longer. The wave itself will be travelling at the same speed as always: the speed of light. The signal would look essentially the same unless the spaceship is moving at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. In that case, the signal would appear to be slowed down in the sense that things will take longer.
2007-08-13 02:05:38 · answer #1 · answered by mathematician 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It takes time for the radio wave/radio signal to travel. A radio wave/radio signal travels at approximately 186,000 miles an hour or the speed of light. The farther you move away the longer the gap between what is sent and when you receive it.
If you continuously transmit that does not make the radio wave from the transmitter move any faster.
2007-08-14 08:50:18 · answer #2 · answered by Art_elk 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It would be constant for a while, but then you would start to get interstellar "lag" or gaps in the transmission most likely. Then the gaps would get so big it probly wouldn't be worth it to maintain contact. It takes about 11 minutes for a radio signal to travel to mars. And I've heard about 1-2 seconds from here to the moon and back.
So I don't imagine the spaceship would get very far away from earth before communication started to take several seconds, then minutes before you could "hear" the person on the other end respond.
2007-08-13 02:09:30 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Radio Waves travel at the speed of light, which is constant. As the ship travels farther out, once it reached 186,000 miles out, the transmission would take 1 sec to reach us. Yes a round trip discussion takes 2 to 3 seconds from the moon. With ther Doppler the speed would be the same but at some point you might have to switch to a lower frequency to receive the signal.
2007-08-13 03:49:18 · answer #4 · answered by orion_1812@yahoo.com 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The signal will be constant. The only problem is that there would be a delay between the moment the transmission is sent to the moment it is actually received and begins to play.
This is the reason why one cannot have 2 way rapid communication with a spaceship far out in space. Your friend on the ship will be able to understand your message (even though he/she will receive it with a delay), but you would have to wait a long while to get a reply and so on and so forth....
2007-08-13 02:05:31 · answer #5 · answered by mashkas 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It would be a modulated wave so the modulation wouldn't change.
As it got farther away the the lag in transmission to reception would increase and the signal would get weaker
The signal would be readable as long as the signal to noise ratio was above a certain strength.
2007-08-13 04:27:53 · answer #6 · answered by Billy Butthead 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"more gapped "???
Not sure what that means.
Its transmission gets Doppler shifted. That means the wavelength gets longer as the transmitter moves away and shorter as it moves toward the receiver. This is because the peak of each wave is created a little farther away from or closer to the transmitter as it moves. So I guess it is sort of gapped. That is the gap between the peak of each wave in the radio signal increases as the transmitter moves away from the receiver.
2007-08-13 02:07:13 · answer #7 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋