ECHOES FROM BEYOND MOON

Evening Star, Issue 20089, 1 February 1929, Page 2

ECHOES FROM BEYOND MOON

SIGNALS FROM EARTH RETURNED FROM SPACE Professor Carl Stormer, of Oslo, in a recent lecture at the academy of there, declared ■ that it had been proved by experiments that wireless signals were echoed back from outer space to the earth from distances up to 1,584,000 miles. It is pointed out that the echo could not have been from the moon, which is only 239.000 miles from the earth, nor from the planets, the nearest of which is 25,000,000 miles away. Mr Hall, an engineer at Oslo, has observed that an echo from tbo transmission of the Dutch wireless station at Eindhodvcn acted on bis receiving apparatus up to three seconds after the signal itself had been rece’ved. .‘.s tbo radio waves have a speed of 186.000 miles a second—the same speed as light—the echo must have been thrown back from a point in space 279,000 miles from the earth. Ho informed Professor Stormer of the phenomenon. The latter immediately arranged for experiments in conjunction with the Eindhoven station. They took place on October 11. The agreed signal was sent out and heard on the receiver. Afterwards came the echo, somewhat weaker, but so distinct that the professor and his collaborators, with absolute certainty, recognised the signals from Eindhoven. The professor mentioned the following times as having been put down as elapsed between the sending out of the signals and the reception of the echo: 3, -IE 5,8, 13, 15 and 17 seconds. The signals must have been thrown hack from points the distance of which from earth was -.—279,000, "317,000, 43-1,000, 745,000, 1,211,000, 1,398,000, and 1.581.000 miles. The director of the Polytechnic Academy of Copenhagen, Professor P. O. Pedersen, says that there is no reason to doubt the statements of Professor Stormer, who a prominent and acknowledged scientist. Asked whether he considers it possible now to penetrate space with radio signals fr6m the earth and get into communication with other globes, Professor Pedersen says; Yes. There is nothing whatever to hinder communication through space provided there is someone that can answer. But it cannot be attained by the use of longwave lengths, as those believe who have sent off messages to Mars. Professor Pedersen believes that the waves on their journey through space have met with electrically charged layers of rays—electrons—which threw the waves back. They may have crossed the path of the waves at different distances from the earth, which accounts for the variations in time. One of the leading British wireless engineers said that he could not offer any explanation of the reception of an echo so late as 17sec. F said: — It takes a wireless wave a seventh of a second to travel round the world, and German engineers have recorded three recurring echoes, each fainter, and each one-seventh of a second later as the wave passed, back from its round-the-world journey three • times. It is generally considered that only a wireless impulse on a very small wave, of about 1 or 2 metres, would pass through the layers of electrons which are thought to lie in the high levels of the atmosphere 100 or 200 miles above the surface of the earth.