How is the data from the Galileo spacecraft sent to scientists on Earth?
Objective: Students learn how digital signals are created and returned to Earth, and then apply these concepts to the interpretation of images from the Galileo Orbiter. Materials: Digital images (To print images, click here); pencils Vocabulary: Digital signals, charge-coupled device (CCD), pixel, resolution Introduction Except for some journeys to the Moon, all spacecraft sent to explore the solar system have been one-way trips. This means that the information collected, including pictures, has to be sent back to Earth electronically. At first, this would seem to be very easy; after all, television stations beam billions of pictures into homes every day. However, the energy required for TV broadcast is very high and the signal gets very weak after a few tens of kilometers. Not only is the distance in space much greater, but the energy available on the spacecraft is tiny; the total is less than the light bulb in your reading lamp. To solve this problem, cameras on the spacecraft conver
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