Laser communication tests with Psyche have now included a cat video
Following up on the first tests in mid-November, engineers on December 11, 2023 downloaded a 15-second cat video from the asteroid probe Psyche at a distance of 19 million miles, demonstrating fast download speeds 10 to 100 times faster than the best radio transmissions.
The demo transmitted the 15-second test video via a cutting-edge instrument called a flight laser transceiver. The video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, sent at the system’s maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps). Capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals, the instrument beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, where it was downloaded. Each frame from the looping video was then sent “live” to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the video was played in real time.
I have embedded that video below. More details about the information in that video can be found here.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Following up on the first tests in mid-November, engineers on December 11, 2023 downloaded a 15-second cat video from the asteroid probe Psyche at a distance of 19 million miles, demonstrating fast download speeds 10 to 100 times faster than the best radio transmissions.
The demo transmitted the 15-second test video via a cutting-edge instrument called a flight laser transceiver. The video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, sent at the system’s maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps). Capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals, the instrument beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, where it was downloaded. Each frame from the looping video was then sent “live” to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the video was played in real time.
I have embedded that video below. More details about the information in that video can be found here.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I sure hope that no aliens were able to intercept that communication. They might get the wrong impression about Earthlings.
Very interesting!
Oh well, the cats built the pyramids in order to trap rats, or something like that.
But I would take it as a warning flag that the guys in charge of this thing take it so lightheartedly. Even if it doesn’t matter in this case, I hope there is preparedness to make proper priorities when it does matter. And that there is a sense of realizing that this is not a coffee break toy for the staff involved.
I’m sure that this is comepltely harmless. But I also think that it won’t look very good in the mirror if the probe happens to go offline tomorrow for any reason. Head of the Billion dollar disaster investigator, Judge Wanna B, Cruul:
“- What were the last data you aprehended from the craft?”
“- Those were cute image data of a kitty cat namned Mjummjum.”
Bang bang bang
“- Order order, Order in the court!
Well well, Sir Professor Engineer NASA project manager. No one has ever made a verdict of mine easier than what you just did. Look how my club comes swinging, and now hear how it hits my table and thus the termination of your career!”
The fact that it is laser implies the signal must be fairly directional and focused Meanwhile, Earth has been radiating radio signals in all directions out into space for more than 100 years. The aliens listening know all about us and have been advised to steer clear or roll up the windows and lock the doors when they fly by.
For heaven’s sakes, people. It was a data transmission test. Lighten up.
My cat told me that white mice ruled humans so this video is perfectly fine to them.
Allan, I’m sure those signals included reruns of National Lampoon’s Vacation …. so if they were watching, they will have those windows up and doors locked.
Allan/Jester-
Not to be a total buzz-kill, but can someone settle this once and for all,(the hitler scene from the movie Contact notwithstanding)?
I’m under the distinct impression only the carrier waves from our transmissions would be detectable, and not the content?
WLW-AM 500,000-Watt Transmitter
Mason, Ohio
K7AGE (2013)
https://youtu.be/CbHjcwIoTiY
31:43
“What if Cats Had Thumbs?”
Cravendale Milk Co. (2011)
https://youtu.be/on9vqL4W6Hc
(0:39)
wayne, I’ve long had similar question.
The earth spins. A transmission from a given point (e.g. TV tower) will swing through space in an arc. Trying to follow a given signal will require racing around that arc at whatever distance the age of the signal implies.
Knowing that there is a signal seems fairly simple, assuming sufficiently sensitive and noise filtering equipment. Watching a TV show (or listening to a radio broadcast) seems nearly impossible without FTL.
About the content of this test: The Internet exist to move cat videos and p0rn. I think we should consider ourselves lucky that they chose the former over the latter.
Markedup2–
Tangentially, We need to keep democrat-staffers away from the video equipment, or we’ll be getting (more) queer-porn videos, if you know what I mean….
(my snarky comment– “the camps, will be filled these people….”)
This is exactly WHY, all this $%&$ is extremely dangerous!
It’s payback & blowback.
One Step Closer
Linkin Park
https://youtu.be/4qlCC1GOwFw
(2:56)
Wayne: We didn’t build transmitters and receivers for the purpose of transmitting and receiving carrier waves. It was for the message encoded within through modulation. We were doing that before any rockets left our atmosphere. couldn’t any hypothetical space faring aliens figure out how to build a radio?
Markedup2: I can visualize an Earth sourced transmission forming an arc of max intensity as it sweeps into space. Out beyond the solar system it would become a spiral and so on. An unfocused analog signal, I believe, would produce an arc of dimension, a thickness resulting in the signal being clearly receivable at any point in space for hours. Fine tuning and noise suppression are standard features on all high end alien receivers.
Finally, once the signal is identified amplification can do miracles. I am told we communicate with Voyager I even though its signal strength is comparable to a light bulb.
Jester Naybor: I always think of The Long Long Trailer with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (1954) as good viewing for the aliens. If you’re familiar with the movie it’s got everything about Earth… Geology and land forms, meteorology, affects of gravity, common mode of human transportation, monetary system, food preparation, society and culture, music, relationship, love and anger, and a happy ending.
Allan–
we built radio transmitters, to transmit radio waves to terrestrial listeners. not aliens. The radiated power drops off as the square of the distance, and notwithstanding the cork-screw motion of the Earth as it travels through Space, radio waves propagate spherically so detectable signals would be detectable all the time.
“Grade A” am-radio service in rural areas requires a groundwave power of 1.5 millivolts/meter, to reach 100% of the receivers in the listening area and penetrate urban areas and man-made noise.
WLW-AM
Ground coverage map for 1 million watt transmitter
https://youtu.be/y1u0bHx83Vw?t=1369
I’m just a social-science Major, we’ve been broadcasting radio for 100+ years and even if we start with 1 million watts, and divide that by the distance 100 light years, squared……I’m led to believe, only the carrier wave would be detectable.
On a brighter note–
Our oxygen atmosphere has been in existence for some time, and that IS very detectable from long distances, in the same manner as we detect exo-planets.
Either way, nobody or anything, is watching Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, in Space.
wayne wrote: “and notwithstanding the cork-screw motion of the Earth as it travels through Space, radio waves propagate spherically so detectable signals would be detectable all the time.”
Keep in mind that radio waves do not travel well through the rocky material of the Earth itself. The only space aliens that would continuously receive our radio signals would be located close enough to the Earths’s rotational axis that the antenna is never eclipsed by our planet. Moreover, the transmitter would have to be continuously transmitting and not going off the air in the middle of the night.
Wayne, I have to acknowledge that an AM modulated signal – which includes NTSC video which was all we had for decades – is highly susceptible to interference from various noise sources, so you are likely right about the modulation being undetectable even if the signal is still discernable at a distance.
Also, radio signals between two objects moving towards/away from each other at high speed are susceptible to Doppler shift, making it harder to tune them in so they are coherent.
All: I am finding this discussion by knowledgeable radio geeks quite fascinating. It seems to my ignorant eyes that you are all basically laying out the technical reasons why aliens have not heard our radio signals, and we have not heard theirs (assuming they exist).
So with all the reasons that the aliens can’t hear us then we can’t hear them too?
Chris wrote: “So with all the reasons that the aliens can’t hear us then we can’t hear them too?”
We may not make out a specific message unless they use their carrier wave as an on/off code like morse, but we may be able to make out a carrier wave, and we may be able to make out some form of non-random pattern that distinguishes itself from background noise. In essence, this is what SETI seeks, something different from background noise.
Signal degradation is why the farther away the probe is, the lower the data rate on the radio signal (bandwidth).
___________________
As Robert noted in his Bachelor show appearance, the cat video attracts more attention with the public, which is the kind of thing that NASA has been trying to do ever since the spectacular Moon landing days. Skylab did a good job of attracting attention, but the Space Shuttle was supposed to be routine, which attracted little attention. What a public relations mistake that philosophy turned out to be. I suspect that had SpaceX put a standard test mass on its first Falcon Heavy launch rather than the much more fun and attention-attracting Tesla, then NASA would have used a different type of test data for its laser test.
Each Shuttle launch should have been exciting from how that flight’s science would contribute to earthbound technology and improve our lives. Instead, the most exciting thing was the competition between Coke and Pepsi aboard the Shuttle. Our space dollars at work. Little of the science was exciting, and NASA failed to show each launch’s importance to earthlings.
We have a similar problem with the other NASA probes. They look more like they excite astronomers and planetary scientists, but we don’t really get an understanding of how this science affects us or our future (after all, the great expert Greta told us the world ends in a few years). When exploration returns to a commercial or other privately funded activity,* we should hear less complaints about how the government is wasting money in space when there are starving Americans.
___________________
Robert wrote: “… you are all basically laying out the technical reasons why aliens have not heard our radio signals, and we have not heard theirs (assuming they exist).”
I have a few reasons why SETI is futile:
1) It is possible that we are the first planet to develop intelligent life, or life that uses radio. Someone has to be first (at least at light speed distances), so why not us? Therefore, SETI is futile.
2) There could be a Star Trek-like non-interference directive, and we are not yet sufficiently advanced for the current intelligent life forms to allow contact with us. Therefore, SETI is futile.
3) No one is using radio, anymore, so there are no signals to overhear. Therefore, SETI is futile.
4) They are already here but are studying us from “duck blinds.” Therefore, SETI is futile.
5) They all are so advanced that we are unimportant to them. It is a little like the scene in Babylon 5 in which G’Kar compares us to ants as compared to the very advanced races in the universe. We barely pay attention to ants, except when they are bothering us, and we are not bothering the other space intelligences. Therefore, SETI is futile.
6) Frankly, what is so interesting about us that the other races would bother getting to know us? Therefore, CETI is futile, too.
On the other hand, we have been broadcasting signals that differ from lightning static for only a century, so there hasn’t been a lot of time for someone to spot us and say hello, so I am still hopeful that SETI is not futile.
___________
* A century ago, observatories and many other scientific experiments were privately funded, not government funded. This worked out well, because the government did not have to tax us too much, we Americans provided jobs for virtually everyone, and government did not hand out money to people who didn’t work or contribute to America. Not only did we wind up with more workers, but we got the science that We the People wanted, not just the science that the government wanted. That all changed when the government started funding most of the science in America and started taking over all other aspects of American life.
Hmm.
Come to think of it, back in those days, when We the People funded our own science, we were advancing at a tremendous rate, but after WWII, when the government funded science in earnest, advancements slowed way down. Now that commercial space companies are starting up, we are getting cheap and easy access to space, cheaper satellites and probes, more manned space voyages and no government gatekeeping on the experiments performed, and soon we will have private space stations, also with no government gatekeeping. We already have companies working on products made in space for use on Earth (although government is gatekeeping their return to Earth for our use). Under government control of space, how many companies made such products in space?
A century ago, there were World Expositions that showed off what the future held for mankind. Things changed so fast that inventors and corporations were showing off what they were working on or what they had just invented. When was the last time we had such an exposition? Disneyland had a ride/show that physically rotated from decade to decade showing how technology changed over the decades to 1960, but things stopped changing, and they never had to change their last stage to show how things improved since 1960.
There is a possibility that in the coming century we could once again see the rapid improvement in our daily lives that was seen in the Victorian age. Laser communication may be a good start.