Bent Light Communications

Destination Space: Distances of Objects in the Universe

Summary

Humans have been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for about a hundred years now, since the days of Marconi. That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years.

The Universe is far too large to use traditional radio wave technology to communicate with other solar systems. We now have technology on Earth to communicate with any location in our Universe instantaneously regardless of it’s distance away from Earth using Quantum Entanglement.

The Solar System: The Solar System (and Earth) is located about 25,000 light-years to the galactic center and 25,000 light-years away from the rim.

The closest Supermassive Black Hole to Earth is at the center of the Milkyway. The Milkyway Galaxy is approximately 100,000 Lightyears across.

1 light-year is approximately 6 Trillion Miles. With our current technology we could cover 1 light-year in 18,449 years. (Traveling at speeds around 35,000 mph/56,327 km/h)

To get to the Supermassive Black Hole 25,000 Light-years away it would take 461,225,000 years. (Even if we could travel at the speed of light “670,616,629 mph/1,079,251,000 km/h” it would take 25,000 years.)

According to Atlas Of The Universe, the following is contained within 1 billion light-years from Earth:

  • 250,000 trillion stars
  • 60 million dwarf galaxies
  • 3 million large galaxies
  • 240,000 galaxy groups
  • 100 super clusters


The International Space Station: ISS

The average distance in miles above Earth’s surface the ISS orbits is 254 miles (400 kilometers). On a clear day, the ISS is easily visible to the naked eye from the ground.

The International Space Station travels in orbit around Earth at a speed of roughly 17,150 miles per hour, 28,163 km/h.(That’s about 5 miles per second!). This means that the Space Station orbits Earth (and sees a sunrise) once every 92 minutes.

Voyager 1: NASA

Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System, Voyager 1 was launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2. Having operated for 41 years, 5 months and 20 days as of February 25, 2019, the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. At a distance of 145 AU approximately 14 billion miles (22 billion km) from Earth as of February 22, 2019, it is the most distant human-made object from Earth.

Voyager 1 has become the fastest and most distant man-made object in the Universe, travelling at around 38,214 mph, 61,500 km/h.

Andromeda Galaxy-M31: The Closest Major Galaxy to Earth

Although several dozen minor galaxies lie closer to our Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy is the closest large spiral galaxy to ours. Excluding the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which can’t be seen from northerly latitudes, the Andromeda galaxy – also known as M31 – is the brightest galaxy you can see. At 2.5 million light-years, it’s also the most distant thing visible to your unaided eye.

To the eye, this galaxy appears as a smudge of light larger than a full moon.

Traveling at the speed of light 670,616,629 mph (1,079,251,000 km/h) it would take 2.5 million years to get there.

Communication Technology: How far have Earths Communications traveled in Space

Humans have been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for about a hundred years now, since the days of Marconi. That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity’s presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years.

To reach the center of our Galaxy with a message using our current technology it would take 25,000 years. It would take 50,000 years to get a reply.

There’s 100’s of Billions of Galaxies in the observable Universe. To communicate with other galaxies or solar systems within our own galaxy radio wave communications would not be a reliable method to send and receive messages.

Why searching for radio messages from other civilizations is pointless.
(The speed of light limits what messages you can detect.)

1. It would take 75,000 years to send a message to the opposite side of our galaxy.

2. It would take 2 million years to send a message to the Andromeda Galaxy which is the closest major galaxy to Earth.

3. A new repeating fast radio burst called FRB 180814.J0422+73 was recorded six times coming from the same location, 1.5 billion light-years away. (This means it took 1.5 billion years to get here.)

Let’s say every galaxy has at least one intelligent civilization. They would be advanced enough to know that in order to successfully send and receive a message at distances over millions/billions/trillions of light-years the speed of light is not efficient.

What communication technology is currently available to communicate vast distances of space instantaneously regardless of their distance apart? Quantum Entanglement.

Advanced Quantum Communication: Quantum Entangled Messages

Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the state of the other, even when the particles are separated by a large distance.

It’s hard to find a stranger, more exotic phenomenon than quantum entanglement — the idea that two entangled particles, or qubits, can influence each other’s state instantly even when they’re light-years apart.

Even if you separate entangled particles by billions of miles, changing one particle will induce a change in the other. This information appears to be transmitted instantaneously, with no violation of the classical speed of light because there’s no “movement” through space.

When Albert Einstein first spoke about quantum entanglement in 1935, he famously called it “spooky action at a distance.” But although quantum entanglement is still very strange, at least scientists are no longer strangers to it. Physicists have so far shown how quantum entanglement works over various distances both on land and in space. Most recently, a Chinese satellite entangled particles over 1,200 km apart, paving the way for the future’s quantum communication and quantum encryption networks.

Communicating with Other Civilizations: Intergalactic Messaging

The Universe is far too large to use traditional radio wave technology to communicate with other solar systems. We now have technology on Earth to communicate with any location in our Universe instantaneously regardless of it’s distance away from Earth using Quantum Entanglement.

This means that if we were to send a message to the center of our Galaxy 25,000 Lightyears away we could send and receive that message in less than the time it takes to blink your eyes.


The Visible Light Spectrum: Quantum Communication

The Visible Light Spectrum can be utilized for Quantum Entanglement. What’s great about using Visible Light Frequencies data can be sent and received at over 1,000Gbs. (That’s the equivalent to downloading 1,000 Full Length Movies a sec.)

Spectroscopy: “If signs of life on another planet are ever discovered, they will be found with a spectrograph.”
-ESO European Southern Observatory

Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation. Historically, spectroscopy originated through the study of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, by a prism.

In 1835, Auguste Comte, a prominent French philosopher, stated that humans would never be able to understand the chemical composition of stars. He was soon proved wrong. In the latter half of the 19th century, astronomers began to embrace two new techniques—spectroscopy and photography. Together they helped bring about a revolution in people’s understanding of the cosmos. For the first time, scientists could investigate what the universe was made of. This was a major turning point in the development of cosmology, as astronomers were able to record and document not only where the stars were but what they were as well.

Astronomical spectroscopy was an off-shoot of chemists’ attempts to analyze materials on Earth as well as scientists’ interest in the nature of color. There were some early forays into spectroscopy before 1850. Joseph Fraunhofer, for example, mounted a prism in front of the objective lens of a small telescope, making a crude spectroscope. He found that when light from the sun and bright stars like Sirius was analyzed there were characteristic absorption lines present in the spectrum produced. Fraunhofer, however, died before he could study this phenomenon more fully.”

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