The feline frontier: Nasa sends cat video from deep space

Members of the DSOC team react to the first high-definition streaming video to be sent via laser by the DSOC tranceiver aboard the Psyche spacecraft, nearly 19 million miles from Earth, featuring a cat named Taters, on Dec 11, 2023 at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. — Handout/Nasa/JPL-Caltech/AFP

WASHINGTON: Nasa on Dec 18 announced it had used a state-of-the-art laser communication system on a spaceship 19 million miles (31 million kilometers) away from Earth – to send a high-definition cat video.

The 15-second meow-vie featuring an orange tabby named Taters is the first to be streamed from deep space, and demonstrates it’s possible to transmit the higher-data-rate communications needed to support complex missions such as sending humans to Mars.