I’ve been first merchandise has been despatched, from one supply or one other, many instances, and it’s time to place it on a Caturday Felid publish.
From IFL Science (first headline beneath):
The first streaming video carried by laser beam from past the Moon has been acquired from 31 million kilometers (19 million miles) away. For additional factors, it’s ultra-high definition (and really cute).
Among the technical challenges required for human colonization of the Solar System, improved communication programs will not be prime of thoughts. However, when you think about how painfully lengthy it took New Horizons to ship again its pictures from its transient flyby of Pluto, it’s clear we have to choose up the tempo.
Last month, NASA conducted a demonstration of the practicality of utilizing near-infrared laser beams to transmit information from the Psyche mission, then at a distance of 16 million kilometers (10 million miles) from Earth.
At the time, NASA HQ’s Trudy Kortes described that achievement in a statement as “One of many critical […] milestones in the coming months, paving the way toward higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.”
The scientific data could have to attend till spacecraft Psyche reaches its vacation spot, the metal-rich asteroid of the identical title, however the streaming movies are right here proper on time. The technical challenges of sending one thing like this are immense, and get bigger the longer the video, so NASA wished to maintain it quick. In that context, what could possibly be a extra applicable introduction than 15 seconds of a cat chasing a laser dot?
Here’s the video. The cat is known as Taters:
IFL Science:
ScienceAlert:
And an excerpt:
NASA on Monday 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 ship a high-definition cat video.
The 15-second meow-vie that includes an orange tabby named Taters is the primary to be streamed from deep house, and demonstrates it’s attainable to transmit the higher-data-rate communications wanted to assist complicated missions equivalent to sending people to Mars.
The video was beamed to Earth utilizing a laser transceiver on the Psyche probe, which is journeying to the primary asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to discover a mysterious metal-rich object. When it despatched the video, the spaceship was 80 instances the gap between the Earth and Moon.
The encoded near-infrared sign was acquired by the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, and from there despatched to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.
“One of the goals is to demonstrate the ability to transmit broadband video across millions of miles. Nothing on Psyche generates video data, so we usually send packets of randomly generated test data,” said Bill Klipstein, the tech demo’s venture supervisor at JPL.
“But to make this significant event more memorable, we decided to work with designers at JPL to create a fun video, which captures the essence of the demo as part of the Psyche mission.”
. . . So why a cat video? First, there’s the historic connection, stated JPL. When American curiosity in tv started rising within the Twenties, a statue of Felix the Cat was broadcast to function a take a look at picture.
And right here’s that broadcast:
and, lastly:
And whereas cats could not declare the title as man’s finest pal, few can dispute their number-one position in terms of web movies and meme tradition.
Uploaded earlier than launch, the clip exhibits Tabby, the pet of a JPL worker, chasing a laser mild on a sofa, with take a look at graphics overlayed. These embrace Psyche’s orbital path and technical details about the laser and its information bit price.
And that brings us to the subsequent publish: the Internet is synonymous with CATS:
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Here’s a 13 12 months old video, three minutes lengthy, that speaks—or slightly sings—fact to energy. Note the presence of His Holiness Ceiling Cat at 1:31. Maru is in there, too.
Now while you do a Google seek for “cats”, you see two issues. First, the outcomes: practically 7.5 billion websites!
And you see this on the Google web page. Click on the screenshot beneath, after which press the cat’s-paw button the place I’ve added an arrow. See what occurs! (Sound up, too.)
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Here is an 8½-minute video of cats doing what they shouldn’t be doing. (Actually, they behave appropriately in some situations.) My favourite is the cat taking a ciggie at 3:56. Also notice “peacekeeper cat” at 5:52.
Unlike the video above, this one’s really good.
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Finally, lagniappe from reader Barry:
I generally have cats stick with me over the vacations (by way of a cat-sitting service in NYC). This one is a Scottish Fold. Her title is Ivy. She is cute, however on this picture she seems to be alarmed. “Why do you put whipped cream on the lower half of your face and then scrape it off?”
h/t: Ginger Okay.
