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Time for Radar Signal to Return to Earth
An important consideration (since you want to still be alive when you work
for Dr. Greenglow!) is just how long it would take to complete this
experiment and get the measurement you need. The light signal from the
probe travels at the speed of light, which is the ultimate speed limit, but
the probe must travel much slower. Also, the distances between stars is
huge, so this experiment might still require a long time to complete. The
the time for a light signal to travel to HT Cas and back is a measure of
the absolute minimum time this experiment could take. It is an easy matter
to calculate how long this approach will take, once you know the distance
to HT Cas.
The total distance traveled would be twice the distance to HT Cas, or 2 x 140
parsecs.
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