this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
318 points (96.5% liked)

Science Memes

13376 readers
2965 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
all 36 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

I bet the receiver that had noise figure low enough to detect that signal consumed more than 3nW while doing it.

[–] [email protected] 121 points 4 days ago (4 children)

The magic of a clear line of sight and vacuum for a good ~384'300km!

So should we do low power communications by using the moon as reflector dish?

[–] [email protected] 91 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Also, directional vs omnidirectional antennas.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This is the most important part.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

And not encoding any data. Well a laser pulse is kind of datum.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago

One bit! That’s all you get!

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There was a NSA program that listened to soviet messages by collecting the transmissions that bounced off the moon.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I gotta say, the moon’s really starting to sound like a fucking snitch.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago

Two thirds of a million kilometres under good conditions and at a precise angle to get a picture of goatse moontooth'd to my phone

Welcome to 2025!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I am worried about 2000ms ping

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

That's what the anti-tachyon modulation circuit is for, to change the time phase and remove most of that lag. Once they're in sync, it's literally real time!

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 days ago

the distance is 384400km

That's almost the distance between my bed and the kitchen before my first cup of coffee!

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 days ago (4 children)

It's easy, you just need a big antenna, low noise receiver (just cool it) for low bandwidth (keeps noise power low) and no interferers in the same frequency band.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Show me a non-directional antenna.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Omni-directional antennas?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Omnidirectional antennas attempt to radiate equally horizontally. An isotropic antenna radiates equally in all directions but is only theoretical. All antennas have some gain.

That being said, there are some antennas that attempt to minimize that gain and be as non-directional as possible while other antennas attempt to maximize that gain and become as directional as possible.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Just because you call it non-directional doesn't mean it is. They all have gain compared to a theoretical isotropic antenna.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

It's almost too easy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

That's fair, though I think we also should thank the use of Travelling Wave Tubes (TWTs or 'twits'). These little tubes of witchcraft amplify the transmission signal to make sure we can still hear, say, the Voyager 1 that's currently over 15-billion miles away.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Perfect. Now put those on cell phones and make it fit in your pocket.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Technology always gets better with no regard to physical limits.

(People who argue this unironically are a pet peeve of mine. Yes, there are limitations on what's possible.)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago (1 children)

My Bluetooth buds often get interference - technically 100 mW, distance from my head to a pocket.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago

technically 100 mW

Technically a maximum of 100 mW, but realistically much lower than that.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I use about 800mW for my fpv drone and if you get a little bit away from yourself and go behind a tree or something you could lose video pretty easily

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Wonder what the latency would be like trying to fly my 3.5" on the moon from earth

Although I suppose the lack of atmosphere would be the bigger issue...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Well duh is space, you gotta put flames on the side for it to go fast

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Think of the speeds you could fly at with no drag! I'm so bummed that the Grace Hopper drone didn't get to fly after Intuitive Machines fluffed their second landing. That would have been awesome outreach from NASA.

We want drones on the moon!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

To be fair, that's an insignificant distance for light to travel.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Still takes at least 2 seconds for the round trip.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well, according to my ex, even 30 or 90 seconds is an interval unworthy of consideration.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)