2024-01-10 13:48:25
NASA received video of a cat from deep space, which It was emitted regarding 31 million kilometers away from Earth. Is it an extraterrestrial contact? No, but it is an important achievement that might allow humans to communicate with aliens in the future.
This experiment was part of the Psyche mission, which travels to the solar system’s asteroid belt to extract samples from the asteroid Psyche and bring them to Earth, just as it did with the asteroid Bennu last year.
But now, Scientists took the opportunity to test a new laser communication systemwhich allows information to be sent over immense distances in a few seconds.
A cat in deep space?
The orange cat that appears in the video, His name is Taters and no, he didn’t travel to space.. The video was recorded on Earth and is regarding the pet of one of the workers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), playing with a laser pointer.
It turns out that NASA, to carry out the Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, He added the video of the feline to the Psyche probe before it left and once he was 31 million kilometers from Earth, he sent the video to the planet..
Thus, the space probe transmitted the video at that distance, which is roughly equivalent to 80 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. The experiment was successful and the video even came in high definition.
“This achievement underscores our commitment to advancing optical communications as a key element of meeting our future data transmission needs,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy.
Besides, Experts hope to refine and use this system when humans begin traveling beyond Earth’s orbit. in the future.
“Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future scientific and exploration goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of the way we communicate during future interplanetary missions,” added Melroy.
How does laser communication from space work?
As explained by NASA it’s a statementthis first test streamed a 15-second video of Taters in high definition, using a state-of-the-art instrument called a “flight laser transceiver”.
The signal, which was broadcast from millions of kilometers away from Earth, at 267 megabits per second (Mbps), It took only 101 seconds to reach the planetless than 2 minutes.
“Capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals, the instrument beamed a near-infrared coded laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, where it was downloaded. Each frame of the looped video was then sent ‘live’ to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the video was played back in real time,” the space agency explained.
Later, Scientists hope to do more tests when the Psyche probe passes through Mars orbitthe red planet that is located 225 million kilometers from Earth and is the next frontier for humans, following the Moon.
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