This picture exhibits a body from a 15-second ultra-high-definition video that includes a cat named Taters which was streamed through laser from deep area by NASA on Dec. 11, 2023.
AP
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AP
This picture exhibits a body from a 15-second ultra-high-definition video that includes a cat named Taters which was streamed through laser from deep area by NASA on Dec. 11, 2023.
AP
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — An orange tabby cat named Taters stars within the first video transmitted by laser from deep area, stealing the present as he chases a purple laser mild.
The 15-second video was beamed to Earth from NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, 19 million miles (30 million kilometers) away. It took lower than two minutes for the extremely high-definition video to achieve Caltech’s Palomar Observatory, despatched on the take a look at system’s most fee of 267 megabits per second.
The video was loaded into Psyche’s laser communication experiment earlier than the spacecraft blasted off to a uncommon steel asteroid in October. The mission workforce at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, determined to characteristic an worker’s 3-year-old playful kitty.
The video was streamed to Earth on Dec. 11 and launched by NASA this week. Regardless of the huge distance, the take a look at relayed the video quicker than most broadband web connections right here on Earth, mentioned the mission’s Ryan Rogalin.
NASA needs to enhance communications from deep area, particularly as astronauts gear as much as return to the moon with an eye fixed towards Mars. The laser demo is supposed to transmit knowledge at charges as much as 100 occasions higher than the radio programs at the moment utilized by spacecraft removed from Earth.
Extra take a look at transmissions are deliberate as Psyche heads towards the primary asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. However Taters will not be making anymore appearances, in accordance with JPL.
Joby Harris, an artwork director in JPL’s DesignLab, could not be prouder, however would not need his cat’s newfound movie star to go to his head.
“I am celebrating his highlight with him, however ensuring he retains his paws on the carpet,” Harris mentioned in an electronic mail Tuesday.
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