this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

really doubt it, Sun's surface is very turbulent mix of hot gasses, you'd need kinda flat surface to reflect anything readable, also Sun itself emits strong radio waves, guess those would interfere a lot with what you'd want to reflect

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Neat question. I’m a ham (amateur radio) and moon bounce is fairly common. Doing a bit of research I found one mention of people doing successful sun bounce but I haven’t found any details:

https://www.sdarc.net/2011/03/31/amateurs-achieve-sun-bounce-on-23cm/

So it looks like it’s possible but not practical or common.

Amplifying? No not at all. These bounced signals are very weak on the way back.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

I'm not a radio (or I guess radar) guy, but a terawatt sounds like quite a lot of power, even if you are pulsing it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

thanks.. I also got an ham license, not sure if it's still valid though because I haven't needed it in many years.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Didn’t they do this in the 3 body problem? I Just finished the first book a few weeks ago

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

They did in the second episode of the TV show claiming that it would amplify the signal. (That's what prompted me to ask the question, lol)

[–] Num10ck 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Pretty sure that you need to shoot the radio signal at a low angle for it to be mostly reflected off the ionosphere