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What is the Speed of Radio Waves in Space? Radio waves in space travel at the speed of light (c ≈299,79×10^6 m/s). That means the distance radio waves travel in 1 second in space is 299,792,458 meters (983,571,056 ft).
The far right of this graph shows radio bursts from the Sun caused by electrons that have been ejected into space during solar flares moving at 20% of the speed of light. Radio telescopes look toward the heavens to view planets, comets, giant clouds of gas and dust, stars, and galaxies.
Like all electromagnetic waves, radio waves in vacuum travel at the speed of light, and in the Earth's atmosphere at a slightly lower speed. Radio waves are generated by charged particles undergoing acceleration, such as time-varying electric currents. [2]
The speed of light is a little less than 300,000 km per second. At that speed, a beam of light could go around the Earth at the equator more then 7 times in a second. The reason that it takes so long for radio messages to travel in space is that space is mind-bogglingly big.
What is the speed of radio waves in space? All electromagnetic waves travel across space at the same speed of light, which is about 300 million meters per second (3.0 x 10^8 m/s). Electromagnetic waves vary in wavelength and frequency.
Electromagnetic radiation (radio waves, light, etc.) consists of interacting, self-sustaining electric and magnetic fields that propagate through empty space at 299,792 km per second (the speed of light, c), and slightly slower through air and other media.
In a vacuum like space, radio waves travel at the speed of light, approximately 300,000 kilometers per second (km/s). However, when they pass through different media such as the Earth’s atmosphere, their speed can be affected.
Radio waves are invisible and cannot be felt either. When they move through a vacuum, they do so at the speed of light. But, their speed drops when they move through a medium, depending on the medium’s permeability. Radio waves have a wavelength range between thousands of meters and 30cm.
Like all waves of the electromagnetic spectrum, radio waves travel at the speed of light. The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 meters per second, often approximated simply as 3 x 108 m/s. It is usually denoted by the symbol c, for the Latin celeritas, meaning “swiftness.”
Above ν = 40 MHz, radio waves from deep space can penetrate Earth’s atmosphere. This makes radio-astronomy observations with ground-based telescopes possible.