NASA hopes the technology could one day allow astronauts on future missions to call Earth from as far away as Mars
Sending cat videos is something people have been doing since the early days of the internet.
But now, NASA has taken a giant leap by broadcasting cat videos from space.
We just streamed the first ultra-HD video brought to you via laser from deep space. And it’s a video of Taters, a tabby cat.
This test will pave the way for high-data-rate communications in support of the next giant leap: sending humans to Mars. https://t.co/tf2hWxaHWO pic.twitter.com/c1FwybYsxA
— NASA (@NASA) December 19, 2023
To test its state-of-the-art communications laser, the space agency broadcast a video of a cat named Taters.
The video was transmitted by a laser on NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which is currently more than 19 million miles (30 million kilometers) from Earth.
While it might be a fun first step, NASA hopes the technology could one day allow astronauts on future missions to call Earth from as far away as Mars.
The video shows a cat owned by a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) employee playing with a laser pointer.
The adorable video is overlaid with additional data, including technical details of the laser emission and Psyche’s orbital path.
Tater’s heart rate, color and breed are also shown in the video.
Taters’ video was uploaded to Psyche’s laser communications system before it began its 2.2-billion-mile (3.6 billion-kilometer) journey to asteroid 16 Psyche between Mars and Jupiter.
This is the longest distance that ultra-high definition video has ever been transmitted.
Despite the vast distances, the video took only 101 seconds to reach Earth, using the test system’s maximum speed of 267 megabits per second.
According to Ryan Rogalin, the project’s electronics receiver lead at JPL, NASA was able to send the video faster than most broadband Internet connections.
Source :Skai
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