Cat named Taters steals the show in first video sent by laser from deep space

A frame from a 15-second ultra-high-definition video featuring a cat named Taters which was streamed via laser from deep space by Nasa (NASA via AP)

A ginger cat named Taters stars in the first video transmitted by laser from deep space, stealing the show as he chases a red laser light.

The 15-second video was beamed to Earth from Nasa’s Psyche spacecraft, 19 million miles (30 million kilometres) away.

It took less than two minutes for the ultra high-definition video to reach Caltech’s Palomar Observatory, sent at the test system’s maximum rate of 267 megabits per second.

The video was loaded into Psyche’s laser communication experiment before the spacecraft blasted off to a rare metal asteroid in October. The mission team at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, decided to feature an employee’s three-year-old pet.

The video was streamed to Earth on December 11 and released by Nasa this week.

Cats in Spaaace! NASA just streamed the first video from deep space via laser, and it’s more than just a cat meme.

The tech demo proved it’s possible to stream HD video from deep space – and lays the groundwork for human exploration of Mars. https://t.co/KkpyskvApv pic.twitter.com/N1JPGZkcTR

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) December 18, 2023

Despite the vast distance, the test relayed the video faster than most broadband internet connections on Earth, said the project’s Ryan Rogalin.

Nasa wants to improve communications from deep space, especially as astronauts gear up to return to the moon with an eye towards Mars. The laser demo is meant to transmit data at rates up to 100 times greater than the radio systems currently used by spacecraft far from Earth.

More test transmissions are planned as Psyche heads toward the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.