Who doesn’t like it video with kittens? Even those who prefer dogs as pets, or those who are not interested in living with a pet, melt when faced with such images. Any kitten video is cute, but there’s one that’s especially important right now because it’s… message from space who arrived on Earth after traveling 31 million kilometers from here.
But no, it was not sent by aliens. It would be interesting if they shared with us their love for kitten videos, but that’s not what we’re talking about. This message from space was on board the spacecraft. Mission Food, when it was released last October. In fact, the cat in question is named Potatoesis the NASA JPL employee mascot.
What’s the point of sending videos of kittens from behind the moon? It’s logical that this essay. The space race is advancing by leaps and bounds, so missions sent from Earth will advance further and further. If they take samples, we will have to wait until they get home to analyze them. On the other hand, when it comes to photographs, the ideal is to be able to see them as soon as possible. And that requires information delivery systems as efficient as the laser these scientists used to send us the good video of Potato.
Lasers to send messages from space
Until now, if a message was sent from space to Earth, it was done through communication systems. radio frequency. At relatively short distances this was not a problem. However, as the ships managed to move on, it turned out that communications had been severely damaged.
For this reason, it was decided to change the type of electromagnetic radiation. RF communication used radio waves. That is, the data was modulated and turned into radio waves that propagated through space at high speed. Speed, which becomes insufficient as the distance increases.
The future, at least for now, is sending messages via radiation on the frequency infrared. That is, through lasers. Infrared radiation is transmitted to much narrower waves. This means that over the same period of time the wave will travel more times and, therefore, ground stations will receive more data.
In fact, as NASA’s website explains, while it would take 9 weeks to send a complete map of Mars to Earth using radio waves, lasers would only be able to flip them over. 9 days.
Much more than just kitten videos
The video sent in by Psyche of Taters chasing a laser for 15 seconds is more than just a video of kittens.
This is an example of what can be achieved with this change in the technologies used to send messages from space. Total time spent on video 101 seconds reach the earth at speed 267 megabits per second. The signal was picked up Hale Telescopewho sent this Mount Palomar Observatory.
It is very interesting that, as explained IFLScience one of the mission members Ryan RogalinUpon arrival at Mount Palomar, the video was sent to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory via the regular Internet and took longer to arrive than it did from the Psyche spacecraft to Earth.
Thus, it was demonstrated how much the laser can facilitate the sending of information. Now there are still challenges ahead, even without leaving the Food mission. It is currently located still very far from destination. By the time you get there, the distance may be too great to point the laser at a telescope like Hale. Along the way, the sender and recipient might have moved too far and it would be necessary to adjustments.
All this will continue over time. At this point, we know that sending messages from space over long distances and speeds is possible. A cat playing with a laser pointer is a great example of this.
Source: Hiper Textual
