NASA has streamed an ultra-high-definition video of a cat named Taters back to Earth from the vastness of space.
A 15-second clip, sent via laser, captures the moggy chasing a laser beam and traveled an astounding 19 million miles – equivalent to 80 times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
The purpose behind the cosmic broadcast was to test laser technology NASA hopes will enhance communications with more remote regions of the solar system.
Orange tabby Taters belongs to an employee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and the video was uploaded to a spacecraft launched with SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on October 13 and was streamed on 11 December.
JPL electronics lead Ryan Rogalin said: “Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections.”
The Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory received the video, which was then downloaded and streamed in real-time at the JPL.
A connection from the observatory to the JPL base was ironically slower than the signal transmitting the clip from space.
Ryan praised JPL’s DesignLab for their contribution to showcasing the technology and added: “Everyone loves Taters.”
Bill Klipstein, demonstration project manager at JPL, said the video, complete with graphics displaying technical mission information and Taters' breed, heart rate, and age, aimed to “make this significant event more memorable”.
The video is available for viewing on YouTube.
NASA's initiative is part of the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) mission, the agency's first endeavor to explore communication beyond Earth and the Moon. DSOC examines technologies capable of delivering higher bandwidth content from deep space to Earth, addressing the limitations of radio frequencies in transmitting large volumes of high-quality images and videos over extensive distances.
NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said about the achievement: “This accomplishment underscores our commitment to advancing optical communications as a key element to meeting our future data transmission needs.”
