Atmospheric diffraction type of dust in the atmosphere. The ionosphere is a layer of partially ionized gases high above the majority of the Earth's atmosphere; these gases are ionized by cosmic rays originating on the sun. When radio waves travel into this zone, which commences about 80 kilometers above the earth, they experience diffraction in a manner similar to the visible light phenomenon described above. In this case some of the electromagnetic energy is bent in a large arc, such that it can return to the Earth's surface at a very distant point (on the order of hundreds of kilometers from the
Earth–Moon–Earth communication since 2010 she has been using it in several of her art projects, including the live performance called OPTICKS, during which digital images are sent to the Moon and back in real time and projected live. Radio waves propagate in vacuum at the speed of light "c", exactly 299,792,458 m/s. Propagation time to the Moon and back ranges from 2.4 to 2.7 seconds, with an average of 2.56 seconds (distance from earth to the moon is 384,400 km). The Moon is nearly spherical, and its radius corresponds to about 5.8 milliseconds of wave travel time. The trailing parts of an