Nasa has transmitted an ultra high-definition video of a feline from outer space back to Earth.
A 15-second video of Taters the cat being sent by laser was shared - and unsurprisingly featured it chasing a laser beam.
The orange tabby's footage was seen to have gone a staggering 19 million miles - equivalent to a staggering 80 round trips between Earth and the Moon.
Nasa is anticipating that the laser technology which they conducted trials on will, in the future, enhance communications with more far-flung parts of the solar system.
Taters, whose paws stayed on the ground, is owned by a staff member at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.
The video was uploaded to a spacecraft that was sent into space on 13 October with SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launch from Florida's Kennedy Space Center and was made available for viewing on 11 December.
"Even though it was transmitting from millions of miles away, Ryan Rogalin, the JPL electronics lead, pointed out that the video was sent faster than many broadband internet connections," reported.
The Hale telescope at the Palomar observatory received the video, which was then downloaded.
It was broadcasted to the JPL and experienced live at that location.
Mr Rogalin stated that the connection utilized to send the video from the Palomar observatory to the JPL base was actually slower than the signal that transmitted the clip from space.
JPL's DesignLab did a fantastic job in assisting us in exhibiting this technology. Everyone is a fan of Taters," he added.
Bill Klipstein, the manager of the demonstration project at JPL, indicated that the video - which was supplemented with visuals revealing mission-related facts as well as Taters' breed, cardiac rate and age - was created to "render this momentous happening more memorable".
You can find the video on YouTube.
As part of the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) mission, Nasa conducted a test which was the agency's first attempt at communications beyond the Earth-Moon link.
The DSOC mission is dedicated to discovering which kinds of technologies are capable of sending high-capacity content from space to Earth since radio frequencies are having difficulty sufficiently transmitting large amounts of data in order to convey high-definition images and video across expansive distances.
Pam Melroy, Nasa deputy administrator, highlighted this success as a way of emphasizing their dedication to optical communications in order to meet their upcoming data transfer requirements.
It is imperative that we expand our bandwidth to reach our exploratory and scientific objectives, and we look forward to the progression of such technology and how we will communicate on our upcoming interplanetary journeys.
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