Let's say humans start living on different planets. In that case, have you ever imagined how much time it would take to communicate between Earth and the other planets. We can calculate this communication time by looking at distances between Earth and the other planets.
image source
The sites I've listed as sources, tell us about the minimum and maximum distances between Earth and the other planets. So using the distances given on those sites, lets do our calculation.
We know that the speed of light is 1080 million km/h or 18 million km/min. So, we'll use that formula to calculate the time a signal takes to reach from a planet to earth and vice versa.
Mercury
| Min distance (km) | Max distance (km) | Min time (mins) | Max time (mins) |
|---|
| 77 million | 222 million | 4.3 | 12.3 |
Venus
| Min distance (km) | Max distance (km) | Min time (mins) | Max time (mins) |
|---|
| 38 million | 261 million | 2.1 | 14.5 |
Mars
| Min distance (km) | Max distance (km) | Min time (mins) | Max time (mins) |
|---|
| 55 million | 401 million | 3 | 22.3 |
Jupiter
| Min distance (km) | Max distance (km) | Min time (mins) | Max time (mins) |
|---|
| 365 million | 601 million | 20.3 | 33.4 |
Saturn
| Min distance (km) | Max distance (km) | Min time (mins) | Max time (mins) |
|---|
| 746 million | 1700 million | 41.4 | 94.4 |
Uranus
| Min distance (km) | Max distance (km) | Min time (mins) | Max time (mins) |
|---|
| 2580 million | 3160 million | 143.3 | 175.6 |
Neptune
| Min distance (km) | Max distance (km) | Min time (mins) | Max time (mins) |
|---|
| 2700 million | 2900 million | 150 | 161.1 |
What about the Moon?
The Moon is much closer to Earth than any planet. The table below shows the distances and times it would take for signals to travel from the Moon to Earth and vice versa. Note that times for Moon here are given in seconds rather than minutes. The time taken is close to one second. So, you can have a pretty decent real time communication between people on Earth and the Moon.
| Min distance (km) | Max distance (km) | Min time (secs) | Max time (secs) |
|---|
| 0.225 million | 0.4 million | 0.75 | 1.3 |
I hope you enjoyed reading this article, and I would love to read your comments about it.
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I think we should connect Earth and Moon via a massive pipeline. Then on the moon, we can use solar energy to run a heavy duty motor which pulls water up through the pipeline and makes moon a water rich place.
Then we can grow plants there and also send some animals. Finally, we can shift some of our population to Moon to test if the communication is real time or there are some hidden obstructions to that.
Great article. Upvoted 💯 and resteemed.
Thanks for your appreciation. Your idea sounds nice but very ambitious :) Maybe an easier way would be to build a space station on the Moon, from where spacecrafts could be launched to extract water from the nearby asteroids and bring them back to the moon.
Stealing from where there's scarcity is not a noble pursuit I think. Haha!
It is really an interesting and informative article @hmushtaq
The distance between the planets is constantly changing as they travel. Earth, Moon and Sun are all in a line, with Moon in its nearest approach to Earth....
Thanks for your appreciation :)
Excellent post.
Lovely n Eye opening article and idea (@hmusftaq), I was thinking once in the last decade or so, we had book (international) trunk call for other countries, we had to wait for many many hours to connect for (03) mins call. Im unable to calculate, that if I would call my friend at the nearest planet (Mars) where communication to one way will take 2.1 minute, If I just 'Hello' it will reach in 2.1 min and she will reply my 'Hello' in 2.1 that would be 4.2 minute. This is minimum calculation of one way communication to nearest planet with minimum distance. I am unable to comprehend other measurement... Because life is short because we have to bring 'Yogurt' from the market.
Great thinking!
Thanks mate :)
Welcome!
Space is a subject that has always fascinated me, I think it's something my generation
Thanks for the article @hmushtaq
Thanks man. Space is very fascinating indeed.
quite informative. Thanks. Though I dont know what will I do with this information. But your efforts are worth upvoting
Thanks for your appreciation :)
interesting..
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