The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) revealed that Earth had just received a laser message from 140 million miles away.
But before you indulge in the fantasy of aliens, there is a simple explanation, in fact, it is a laser fired by the earthlings themselves.
The laser message was launched to Earth by NASA's Psyche spacecraft, which is currently 140 million miles away from Earth, equivalent to 1.5 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.
According to NASA, this impressive achievement could pave the way for future missions to Mars.
"This achievement provides a glimpse into how spacecraft will use optical communications in the future, enabling high-speed data transmission of complex scientific information, as well as high-definition image and video transmission, to support humanity's next great leap to Mars," the agency explained. ”
The laser information is transmitted to Earth via NASA's deep-space optical communication transceiver, which is currently installed on the Psyche spacecraft.
This transceiver sends and receives data through an 8.6-inch aperture telescope.
Mira Srinivasan, head of program operations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said, "We downloaded about 10 minutes of repeating spacecraft data via a data link during a process on April 8. ”
"Until now, we had been sending test and diagnostic data through Psyche," she said. This marks an important milestone in the project, showing how optical communications interface with the spacecraft's RF communication system. ”
The experiment was first launched in December 2023, when Psyche was just 19 million miles from Earth.
In that initial test, the test data was transmitted at a rate of 267 megabits per second, which is equivalent to the download speed of broadband Internet.
Now that the spacecraft is more than seven times farther away from Earth, it can send and receive data at a reduced rate.
In the latest tests, the spacecraft transmitted data at a rate of 25 megabits per second.
As low as it sounds, NASA says it's far more than the project's goal of transmitting at a rate of at least one megabit per second over that distance.
Ken Andrews, head of flight operations for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory project, said: "This is a small piece of data downloaded in a very short period of time, but the fact that we are now able to do so has exceeded all of our expectations. ”
Previously, NASA only used radio waves to communicate with missions that went beyond Earth.
"Just as fiber optic replaces old telephone lines on Earth as data demand grows, switching from radio to optical communications will result in higher data transmission rates within the solar system that are 10 to 100 times higher than the capacity of the state-of-the-art systems currently used in spacecraft," NASA explained. ”
"This will better support future human and robotic exploration missions and support higher resolution scientific instruments," NASA said. ”