NASA revealed that a laser beam hit Earth from a distance of more than 10 million miles, but this laser is not straying, and the agency says that aliens are not responsible for this, as the laser was sent towards Earth by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which is currently more than 10 million miles (16 million km) from Earth.
According to the British Daily Mail, NASA hopes that the new technology will allow astronauts on future missions to make video calls to Earth from distant places such as Mars.
This was the first test, or “first light,” of the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) laser system, and the first time a laser had been used to send data from beyond the Moon.
NASA says it wants to use the tested technology to build a communications network in space, just like the fiber-optic cable network used on Earth.
DSOC rides with the Psyche spacecraft as it completes its 2.2 billion mile (3.6 billion km) journey to asteroid 16 Psyche between Mars and Jupiter.
Psyche will complete a flyby of Mars, giving NASA engineers a chance to see if future Mars missions can use lasers to stay in contact with Earth.
“Achieving first light is one of many important milestones for DSOC in the coming months,” said Trudy Curtis, technology demonstration manager at NASA Headquarters.
Curtis added that the test paves the way for higher data rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition images and video streaming to support humanity’s next giant leap.
DSOC is first installing a powerful uplink laser beacon transmitted by the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at JPL’s Table Mountain facility in California.
This allows the spacecraft to point the laser toward the communications array at Palomar, about 100 miles (130 km) to the south.
Meera Srinivasan, DSOC operations lead for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the test was “the first to fully integrate ground and flight transponder assets, requiring the DSOC and Psyche operations teams to work side-by-side.”
“It was a huge challenge, and we have a lot of work to do, but for a short time, we were able to transmit, receive and decrypt some data,” she added.
