Voyager 1 is 24 billion kilometers from Earth.
It communicates with us using a 23-watt transmitter.
Less than a refrigerator light bulb.
The signal takes 22 hours to reach us, traveling at the speed of light.
By the time it arrives, it's 20 billion times weaker than the power of a digital watch battery.
NASA's Deep Space Network picks it up using 70-meter dish antennas cooled to near absolute zero to reduce electronic noise.
The engineering required to hear a 23-watt signal from 24 billion km away is arguably more impressive than the spacecraft itself.
Launched 1977.
Still transmitting.
Still being heard.
We built something that works perfectly, 47 years later, in conditions no one has ever tested in.
That's what engineering for the long term looks like.
The plastic ring around a duck's beak doesn't kill it fast. It starves it slowly. 2 seconds and a couple cuts fixes this problem.
A duck with a ring stuck on its bill can't open its mouth to eat. It can't fish. It can't preen. It tries to scrape the ring off against rocks, branches, mud, anything, until its bill is raw and it's exhausted from the effort.
Wildlife rehabbers see this constantly in waterfowl: cranes, geese, ducks, pelicans, and herons. The birds in the photo below are three out of millions.
The fix takes about two seconds. Cut every plastic loop you encounter before throwing it away. Six-pack rings, jug seals, the rings around milk caps, dog treat bag tops, mask ear loops. Snip every closed circle into an open line.
You won't see the bird your snip saved, but the ring you cut tonight isn't out there waiting to choke a tern next year. It's already a piece of broken plastic on its way to a landfill, no longer a snare for anything.
Got really sunburned doing yard work today so I took 3 Viagra.
Doesn't do anything for the sunburn but it does keep the sheet off my legs when I lay in bed.