High-definition video of a cat transmitted 19 million miles through space using a laser

In preparation for Mars missions, NASA has transmitted a 15 second, high definition video of a cat chasing a laser pointer 19 million miles through space via laser. The cat in the video it is owned by one of the staffers at NASA.

Screenshot from video which is courtesy NASA. Nice video actually.

In fact, the cat, 'Taters' lives with one of the employees of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

The video was sent from NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications team's Psyche probe back to earth. The probe set off in October and is on a six year mission to visit an asteroid. The video was transmitted back to Earth on December 11.

“One of the goals is to demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles,” Bill Klipstein, the tech demo’s project manager at JPL, told CBS. “Nothing on Psyche generates video data, so we usually send packets of randomly generated test data.

It is appropriate to send a cat video. I think you will agree because for a while, cat videos were dominating the world as were pictures of cats specifically funny pictures of cats. It was all pretty crazy and stupid but now they've managed to transmit this video over millions of miles through deep space, they'll be sure that they can do the same thing when the team travels to Mars.

Here is the Twitter X video (remember that it is embedded here. It might not work one day):

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

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.