Half Light Speed Probes: See What Earth Sees

[Mikec_vet]

You send a probe out into space at half light speed transmitting continuous video footage. What does the footage look like as seen on earth?

 

[Simon Bridge]

It looks like video footage.
:) Welcome to PF

The Earth observers would see the carrier wave doppler-shifted.
If the footage was time-stamped, you'd see evidence for time dilation.
Was there something specific you were wondering about?

 

[Drakkith]

Am I correct in assuming you would have to account for the doppler shift to even understand the signal?

 

[Simon Bridge]

Depend on how the data was encoded.

If it was an old-style am signal, and it was just audio (say, the pilot reporting her position and time) then you'd just tune your radio receiver into whatever gets a strong signal and you'll hear her voice a bit on the deep side talking a bit slow. How big-a difference is 0.5c going to make?

If it was a modern wireless broadband video stream, I don't know the standard. I know it has to be able to handle streaming between different speed networks. I imagine you could work something out with the engineers so the receiver does not make assumptions about the incoming data's clock speed. That's just an engineering problem.

Of course, for sufficiently high speeds you may need a different kind of receiver completely.

In this example, the transmission was by prior arrangement - how you pick out a signal when there was no prior arrangement is a SETI problem innit :) Normally you'd know the relative speeds anyway.

 

[pmacias]

I can say that the footage transmitted from a probe traveling at half the speed of light would appear to be significantly distorted or stretched due to the effects of time dilation. This phenomenon occurs when an object moves at high speeds, causing time to appear to pass slower for the object in motion compared to an observer at rest.

In this case, as the probe is traveling at such a high speed, the video footage would appear to be slowed down and stretched out, making it difficult to perceive the images in real-time. This means that the footage would not accurately represent what is happening in real-time from the perspective of an observer on Earth.

Additionally, the footage would also experience a phenomenon called Doppler effect, which causes the wavelengths of light to appear shifted towards the red end of the spectrum. This would result in a reddish tint to the images transmitted from the probe.

In summary, the footage from a probe traveling at half the speed of light would be significantly distorted and difficult to interpret, making it challenging to see what Earth sees in real-time. It would require advanced technology and analysis to accurately interpret the footage and understand what is happening from the perspective of an observer on Earth.