Absolutely, this seems like one of the most amazing in a long string of incredible things. There’s only enough energy to power two 60w light bulbs, and yet it can transmit all the way to earth while also powering the computer running the thing.
If a transmitter and a receiver is in space, what's the furthest distance the receiver can go away from and have a 1 watt signal still above the noise floor? Assume the transmitter is a perfect omnidirectional.
About 9200 miles.
I was assuming absolute worst conditions, at 1 watt PEP.
With hardware noise reduction, we can drop easily to .1 watt and still keep everything else consistent.
Next, if we choose a directional antenna, we can also greatly magnify directed output. No sense in directing energy in the ground, is there?
We can also have receiver systems (dish arrays) that can provide great gains in reception and transmitting.