Earth just received a laser-beamed cat video from 19 million miles away
Topics: Cats, Technology, NASA, Space, News
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: 3D Sculptor/alex_west/Getty Images
Topics: Cats, Technology, NASA, Space, News
NASA have just made history... with a cat video.
Sounds underwhelming because, well, cat videos are pretty much all over the internet and have been for a long time.
But this short clip was instead sent from 19 million miles away from the Psyche mission's spacecraft.
The Psyche mission launched in October - with the rocket now making its way to metal rich asteroid, 16 Psyche.
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It won't actually land on it, but will orbit the asteroid instead.
There's said to be a staggering $10,000,000,000,000,000,000 worth of precious metals on the asteroid, with the spacecraft expected to land in its orbit in August 2029.
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And the Psyche mission is being putting to good use in regards to the communications sphere while making its way to the metal rich asteroid - with the video of Taters the cat being hailed as a huge milestone for NASA.
In the video, ginger tabby Taters can be seen chasing a laser pointer on a sofa. What's not to like?
But fear not, animal lovers - Taters isn't actually in space.
The video was recorded on Earth and uploaded to the spacecraft before it launched.
Taters is owned by one of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) employees.
The cute clip of the cat was sent down to earth from NASA's Psyche mission is in a matter of seconds - faster than some broadband providers.
And in 101 seconds to be precise, JPL employees received the video.
It was encoded into near-infrared laser signals and sent by a flight laser transceiver carried aboard Psyche to the Hale Telescope at Mount Palomar.
NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said of the successful data transfer: "This accomplishment underscores our commitment to advancing optical communications as a key element to meeting our future data transmission needs.
"Increasing our bandwidth is essential to achieving our future exploration and science goals, and we look forward to the continued advancement of this technology and the transformation of how we communicate during future interplanetary missions."
The successful experiment comes after the Psyche mission successfully sent a message down to Earth via laser last month.
But the video of the adorable Taters is even more impressive as it's proven that larger data can be transferred over by the groundbreaking beam.
Bill Klipstein, the tech demo’s project manager at JPL, said that that one of their goals is 'to demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles'.