Posted on 01/18/2013 3:28:25 PM PST by BenLurkin
Call it the ultimate in high art: Using a well-timed laser, NASA scientists have beamed a picture of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, to a powerful spacecraft orbiting the moon, marking a first in laser communication.
The laser signal, fired from an installation in Maryland, beamed the Mona Lisa to the moon to be received 240,000 miles (384,400 km) away by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the moon since 2009. The Mona Lisa transmission, NASA scientists said, is a major advance in laser communication for interplanetary
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
I never could understand why the Mona Lisa is considered such a masterpiece when there are Vincent van Gogh’s selfportraits with and without ear.
Mega ad bucks !!!!
Now, let's try beaming Roseanne Barr to the moon. I'm so over her.
Haven’t read the article, but I think what they are describing is transmitting enough data to reconstruct the Mona Lisa, and the transmission was via light - sort of like fiber optics without the fiber. It is possible to obtain a much faster rate of data transmission compared with using radio waves, because the carrier frequency of light is very, very high, compared with radio waves.
Radio waves in free space move at the speed of light.
LOL!
Moona Lisa! LOL!
Are sure it's not Alice?
Yes, I know. But the maximum rate of information transmission depends on the time interval between "bits" of information. More information can be delivered in one second on a high freque3ncy carrier, than on a low frequency carrier - even though both carriers move at the same speed.
Morse code travels at the speed of light too, just to give an example at the "low frequency" end of the spectrum.
True enough.
Could they at least beam Bambi and Manchelle to the moon, and then break the laser they used to do it?
Thanks BenLurkin. Unfortunately, the probe was screening calls, so NASA had to lase the portrait into the probe’s answering machine.
An ‘extra, extra’ ping to APoD members.
Lunar broadband will be excellent, just FYI.
We’d have to beam her, we don’t have that kind of heavy-lift capability any longer.
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