[DBrow]

The most difficult part, as I see it, is for an iPhone-sized box to punch a signal- an image signal- over 4 light years, and to receive that signal.

And to remember to look for it after 50 years!

[Little Pig]

The probes will transmit to the “mother ship” that brought them, which would be big enough to carry a more substantial transmitter and enough power to throw the signal back here.

I hope it works, and I hope that there will be breakthroughs in drive technology and related systems that let them accelerate the timeline. I’d like to be able to see genuine surface images of an extrasolar planet, even a barren rock, in my lifetime.

[fishtank]

If there is a string of satellites, they’d only transmit by leapfrog from one to the next.

[doorgunner69]

The most difficult part, as I see it, is for an iPhone-sized box to punch a signal- an image signal- over 4 light years, and to receive that signal.

Ya got to round up a passle of millenials to text or whatever it is they do on those phones as well.

[alancarp]

"The most difficult part, as I see it, is for an iPhone-sized box to punch a signal- an image signal- over 4 light years, and to receive that signal."