(Daily Point) — NASA has achieved a groundbreaking milestone by successfully transmitting an ultra-high definition video from a cat named Taters, located almost 19 million miles away.

This remarkable feat is part of NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, which aims to demonstrate the capability of streaming high-bandwidth video and data from deep space.

On December 11, the experiment successfully beamed a 15-second test video using a state-of-the-art instrument called a flight laser transceiver. The video signal traveled a record-setting distance of 19 million miles, taking 101 seconds to reach Earth. The instrument, equipped to send and receive near-infrared signals, utilized an encoded near-infrared laser to transmit the video to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in California.

From there, the video was downloaded and sent “live” to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where it was played in real time.

This laser communications demonstration, initiated with NASA’s Psyche mission, aims to transmit data from deep space at rates 10 to 100 times faster than current state-of-the-art radio frequency systems. As the Psyche mission travels to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, this technology will enable high-data-rate signals to be sent as far as Mars.

The success of this demonstration is pivotal for future interplanetary missions, facilitating the transmission of complex scientific information, high-definition imagery, and video, supporting humanity’s aspirations, including the eventual goal of sending humans to Mars.

Beyond its technological significance, this achievement also injects a touch of whimsy, as the video featuring Taters the cat was created to make the event more memorable.

This milestone underscores NASA’s commitment to advancing optical communications and meeting the future data transmission needs for ambitious exploration and scientific goals.