Not happy with your internet speeds? Worried about it getting worse? There’s a simple solution: Just move to the moon. Researchers just beamed Wi-Fi there, and the connection is probably faster than anything you have in your neighbourhood.
Moon Wi-Fi has been a long time coming, but researchers at NASA and MIT have now made it a reality. Using four 6-inch diameter telescopes to beam pulses of infrared light to a satellite circling the moon, scientists established a solid connection with a speed of 19Mbps down.
While it may beat out your friendly neighbourhood ISP, it’s nothing compared to the ISS-to-Moon connection, which offers a blistering 622 Mbps down. But over an Earth-to-moon distance of 384,000km, 19Mbps down ain’t bad. The researchers will present more in-depth findings at the CLEO laser technology conference in California. [Discovery]
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