A laser beamed from over 100 million miles away has just struck Earth.
But unlike the movie Independence Day, this laser is perfectly harmless – and NASA says aliens aren’t to blame.
The laser was beamed towards Earth by NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which is currently over 100 million miles (160 million kilometres) away from Earth.
To put that into perspective, that’s four times further than the moon.
NASA hopes the new technology could one day allow astronauts on future missions to video call Earth from as far away as Mars.
Just like a scene out of Independence Day, a laser fired from deep space has struck earth as part of a test for NASA’s latest communications technology
This was the first test, or ‘first light’, of the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) laser system.
It is also the first time a laser has been used to send data from further than the Moon.
NASA says it wants to use the technology tested here to build a communications network in space, just like the network of fibre-optic cables used on Earth.
DSOC is riding with the Psyche spacecraft as it completes its 2.2 billion-mile (3.6 billion-kilometre) trip to the asteroid 16 Psyche between Mars and Jupiter.
On the way, Psyche will complete a ‘Mars fly-by’, giving NASA’s engineers an opportunity to see if future Mars missions could use lasers to stay in touch with Earth.
Trudy Kortes, director of Technology Demonstrations at NASA Headquarters, said: ‘Achieving first light is one of many critical DSOC milestones in the coming months’.
Ms Kortes added that the test paves the way for ‘higher-data-rate communications capable of sending scientific information, high-definition imagery, and streaming video in support of humanity’s next giant leap.’
The laser transceiver module, seen here unfolded in a NASA clean room, can send and receive data up to 10 times faster than radio communications
Current satellites use radio signals to communicate, receiving commands and returning data to controllers.
Radio waves and lasers are both types of electromagnetic radiation that can pass through the vacuum of space at the speed of light.
The difference is that, since infrared light is a higher-frequency wave, NASA’s new laser communications system can transfer more information per second.
The flight laser transceiver takes data in the form of bits, and encodes these into the photons that make up the laser.
Back on Earth, the signal is received by a superconducting high-efficiency detector array which identifies individual photons as they arrive and decodes the data.
While the signal does travel at the speed of light, the great distances involved make it a significant challenge to accurately beam a laser signal to a receiver on Earth.
The superconducting high-efficiency detector array catches and identifies individual photons to decode the information being sent by the spacecraft
NASA’s eventual goal is to build a laser communications network throughout space to transfer more scientific and communications data with less energy
DSOC first locks onto a powerful uplink laser beacon transmitted by the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility in California.
This enables the spacecraft to aim its laser at the communications array at Palomar, around 100 miles (130 km) to the south.
Meera Srinivasan, operations lead for DSOC for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that the test was ‘the first to fully incorporate the ground assets and flight transceiver, requiring the DSOC and Psyche operations teams to work in tandem.’
‘It was a formidable challenge, and we have a lot more work to do, but for a short time, we were able to transmit, receive, and decode some data,’ she added.
NASA is also preparing to establish a two-way laser communication system on the International Space Station.
Earlier this month, NASA sent a laser communication terminal to the ISS to test how high-rate lasers could be used in a low orbit.
The ultimate goal is to integrate lasers into the entire communications system to build a faster and more reliable network in space.
Dr. Thomas Hughes is a UK-based scientist and science communicator who makes complex topics accessible to readers. His articles explore breakthroughs in various scientific disciplines, from space exploration to cutting-edge research.
