Lucy's laugh travels the solar system
- added April 21, 2008
- 2 responses
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- vavavicky
- added this
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In 1951, when CBS first broadcast the I Love Lucy show, Ricky, Lucy, Fred and Ethel became electromagnetic signals traveling at nearly the speed of light to receivers all over America, where they got bounced on to our living rooms and into our lives.
But not all those signals stayed on Earth.
A few signals bounced off the surface of our planet or shot straight up into the sky and continued onward. Traveling at light speed in empty space, the signals arrived at the moon after a second and a half, says astronomer Chris Impey of the University of Arizona. An hour later, Lucy passed Jupiter. Five hours later, she was at the edge of our solar system. So where is her signal today? "It's traveled for 57 years," says Impey, "and a light year is about 4 trillion miles, so 57 light years is about 200 trillion miles."
That's a long voyage. I Love Lucy passed Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our sun, around 1955 and has now moved past about 200 stars and who knows how many planets. This raises the question: If there's intelligent life out there, could it hear Lucy?
But not all those signals stayed on Earth.
A few signals bounced off the surface of our planet or shot straight up into the sky and continued onward. Traveling at light speed in empty space, the signals arrived at the moon after a second and a half, says astronomer Chris Impey of the University of Arizona. An hour later, Lucy passed Jupiter. Five hours later, she was at the edge of our solar system. So where is her signal today? "It's traveled for 57 years," says Impey, "and a light year is about 4 trillion miles, so 57 light years is about 200 trillion miles."
That's a long voyage. I Love Lucy passed Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our sun, around 1955 and has now moved past about 200 stars and who knows how many planets. This raises the question: If there's intelligent life out there, could it hear Lucy?
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Reminds me of Futurama with the Ally McBeal rip off. In a thousand years some very angry and violent alien fans of I Love Lucy will show up and demand more episodes... too bad we'll all be dead.
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- StuntBunny
- 8 months ago
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As someone who has done a few billion hours of live TV, we always took comfort after the show in thinking, no matter how bad the show, it was "past Jupiter, so just forget it".
But seriously, as we scan the skies for signals from others, think of the people who will discover our TV signals....and what they will think of us. And how they will decide if we are peaceful or not.
Makes we hope the religious types are right, and we are alone in the universe.
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