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In Interstellar, they have shown that the astronauts Mann, Miller and Edmunds were sending signals to NASA (Earth) through their beacons.

Also NASA is able to send videos recorded on earth to Cooper and his team while they are in all together a different galaxy!

I want to know whether this is possible and how? How can you send data (heartbeats through beacons and videos) to and from earth and planets of unknown galaxies?

Napoleon Wilson
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DarkKnightFan
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    In the movie supposedly through the wormhole, which was a direct connection. But if that is true to the physics of real wormholes (wut?) I don't know either. – Napoleon Wilson Nov 18 '14 at 12:01

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They were sending the data through the wormhole orbiting Saturn. It was mentioned there were satellites on both sides of the wormhole to enable the communication. The signal would be delayed approximately 1.4 hours because of the distance to Saturn and possibly more because of distances on the other side. So the direct radio/video chat would be impossible.

Irigi
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  • Was this mentioned in the movie!! Strange that i missed it even after watching it twice! – DarkKnightFan Nov 18 '14 at 15:44
  • I believe they also said they kept the signal very basic, using only binary to send data back and forth because it's small, which aids in transmission speed, and has a lower chance of being corrupted or degraded. – MattD Nov 18 '14 at 15:47
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    @DarkKnightFan I'm not 100% sure it was mentioned. I will have to watch it again. But from point of view of physics, it is probably the only way how to do it. – Irigi Nov 18 '14 at 16:10
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    @DarkKnightFan, Yes it was mentioned. – bobbyalex Nov 19 '14 at 02:50
  • @MattD, They were able to send videos back and forth so I dont think it was that basic. Plus all data transmission we do between computers IS in binary; I don't there is any other way to send computer data. – bobbyalex Nov 19 '14 at 02:53
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    @BobbyAlexander Data transmission can occur as a binary signal, or an analog signal. With everything being digital nowadays it's easy to forget that even as recently as a few years ago, broadcast TV signals were all analog. Remember the DTV switch? The point is that binary data with simple bits of information, enough to get a message across, is far more reliable than trying to send back images and video, and takes far less time, which is something they were running out of. – MattD Nov 19 '14 at 03:34
  • They did not specify how long did it take to transmit those videos. Even if you have bandwidth 5 bytes/second, you can transmit 1 MB video in 2 days. – Irigi Nov 19 '14 at 08:41
  • Why couldn't Romily send any message from Endurance to Earth while the others were on Miller's planet? – OrangeDog Nov 22 '19 at 10:55
  • I guess that because the spacecraft has only limited range of transmission and they would need to be closer to the wormhole (i.e. the wormhole and the planet are far from each other). So they would have to fly closer to the wormhole after she returned. But I am not sure if such explanation is consistent with the rest of the movie, I do not remember it now so well. – Irigi Nov 22 '19 at 19:06