When the Mars Rover landed on Mars, it was 11 light minutes from Earth (meaning that it would take a radio signal 11 minutes to get from Earth to Mars).


If NASA sent a signal to the Rover saying “go left at 5 mph”, the Rover would get that signal in 11 minutes from when we sent it.


If a rock crushed the Mars Rover, we wouldn’t know about it for 11 minutes here on Earth.


If we knew that 5 minutes from now, a rock was going to crush our Rover, is there anything we would do about it? No. it takes our signal too long to get there. No action on Earth can affect anything on Mars for 11 minutes.


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2 Responses to “Past, Present, Future & Elsewhere”

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