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1. Ricardo (rgbes@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 06-Aug-2023 09:55:31 UTC Ricardo

   in reply to

   • dragfyre
   • John Carlos Baez

   @dragfyre @johncarlosbaez That would have happened, eventually, but that's not what actually happened. AFAIK, the antena does not have a single high sensitivity direction (think of diffraction patterns), so even if it's pointing in the wrong direction it's possible to target one of the lower "secondary sensitivity peaks" if you beam loud enough. But bear in mind that IANAVI (I'm not a Voyager engineer)

   • dragfyre (dragfyre@mastodon.sandwich.net)'s status on Sunday, 06-Aug-2023 09:55:32 UTC dragfyre

     • John Carlos Baez

     @johncarlosbaez As far as I heard, Voyager was programmed to "right itself" in case it found that it wasn't pointed in the general direction of the Earth, which it would check by taking pictures of reference stars. Don't quote me on that, though.