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by lorenzhs 3055 days ago
Not even GPS transmits to the satellites, it only relies on observations of what the satellites sent.

And pulsars are quite a bit further away than tens of light minutes :) Mars is currently 14 light minutes from Earth. PSR J2144-3933 is one of the nearest known pulsars, and it's some 587 light years away.
1 comments
pc86 3055 days ago
Yes but if we're using it as a beacon the distance is irrelevant, isn't it? It's been "transmitting" for much longer than 587 years, we're already receiving a signal, and that's what we're using?
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lorenzhs 3055 days ago
Exactly. The post I replied to said "One wouldn't be transmitting to pulsars and awaiting a response", and I expanded on that. The whole subthread of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16288955 doesn't make much sense because nobody defined what they mean by "latency" and people are talking about different things.
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