Posted on 10/17/2014 2:59:59 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Here is a video of the International Space Station in an odd shade of … green. And no, it’s not because astronauts secretly painted the hull during their spacewalk this week.
What you’re actually seeing is a green laser shining on the space station as part of a test of next-generation communications technologies. Lasers have been used in successful tests to the Moon and the space station in the past year, hinting that perhaps there’s a faster way to transmit data than over traditional radio.
The clip was filmed at the European Space Agency’s optical ground station in Tenerife, Spain on Oct. 8 as part of a social media event. Below, you can see a shot of the laser in action, aiming at the sky
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
It is not faster in terms of travel time, but in how much information an be sent
Bandwidth, rather than transmission speed?
CC
Clouds, rain, and snow gotta suck.
In some ways better, but not in all ways. Signal propagation through your aforementioned atmospheric phenomena would be problematic. Or, as you say it would “suck”.
CC
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