NASA Beams 'Hello, World!' Video from Space via Laser

[petskup]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-177

[1715424040]

1715424040

[BitsBitsBits]

I read this on reddit yesterday, pretty awesome.

[jaberwock]

What is the difference with using radio waves?

[Lethn]

I don't have a huge understanding of these kind of physics but I think I'm right in thinking that light is faster than radio waves, so that means in theory you could transmit data a lot faster than your standard wireless connection, I guess it's a bit like fibre optic where they use light to transmit data through the wires.

[jaberwock]

I don't have a huge understanding of these kind of physics but I think I'm right in thinking that light is faster than radio waves, so that means in theory you could transmit data a lot faster than your standard wireless connection, I guess it's a bit like fibre optic where they use light to transmit data through the wires.

Light travels the same speed with radio waves.

[DolanDuck]

It's much faster 

The entire transmission lasted 148 seconds and reached a maximum data transmission rate of 50 megabits per second.
It took OPALS 3.5 seconds to transmit each copy of the "Hello World!" video message, which would have taken more than 10 minutes using traditional downlink methods.

[Justin00]

not 100% famliar with this, but it does sound cool.
did any aliens respond, if not.. shoot laser in a diff direction!

[zimmah]

What is the difference with using radio waves?

Different spectrum and different way of receiving. Although they both essentially are electromagnetic 'waves' or light.

I think lasers are more focused too, while radio waves travel in all directions, don't they? I mean even the best lasers will diverge at great distance but radio waves even moreso. So I guess unless you have a very accurate laser pointed exactly at a reciever radio waves may have a better chance of actually getting a message across vast distances.

But I'm not a specialist on this subject.

Radio waves actually travel with the speed of light, but I'm not sure if the data encoding allows for the same transmission speed. Travel speed and transmission speed are not necessary the same. Although that's a little hard to explain I guess.

[Carra23]

I don't have a huge understanding of these kind of physics but I think I'm right in thinking that light is faster than radio waves, so that means in theory you could transmit data a lot faster than your standard wireless connection, I guess it's a bit like fibre optic where they use light to transmit data through the wires.

Both of them are the same type with different frequencies. Laser can be focused more and can be made precise.