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The U.S. space agency says an orange cat named Taters is the star of the first video sent by laser from deep space.
美国航天局表示，一只名为“土豆泥”的橙色猫是首个通过激光从深空发送视频的明星。
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft sent the 15-second video to Earth from 30 million kilometers in space. The video shows Taters as he chases a red laser light.
美国宇航局的Psyche飞船从太空中的3000万公里向地球发送了这段15秒的视频。视频显示了土豆泥追逐红色激光光线的情景。
It took less than two minutes for the video to reach Caltech’s Palomar Observatory. The video quality is called ultra high-definition. It was sent at the test system’s maximum rate of 267 megabits per second.
视频不到两分钟就到达了加州理工学院的帕洛马天文台。这段视频的画质被称为超高清。它以测试系统的最大速率267兆位每秒发送。
NASA loaded the video into Psyche’s laser communication experiment before launching the spacecraft to visit a rare metal asteroid in October. The mission team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, decided to use an employee’s three-year-old cat.
美国宇航局在10月发射Psyche飞船前将视频加载到Psyche的激光通信实验中，该飞船计划探访一颗稀有金属小行星。位于加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳市的NASA喷气推进实验室（JPL）的任务团队决定使用一名员工的三岁猫。
The video was sent to Earth on December 11 and was released by NASA this week. The test sent the video faster than most internet connections here on Earth, said project leader Ryan Rogalin.
该视频于12月11日发送到地球，并于本周由NASA发布。项目负责人瑞安·罗加林表示，该测试比地球上大多数互联网连接发送视频更快。
NASA wants to improve communications from deep space as it prepares efforts to send astronauts to the moon and possibly to the planet Mars. The laser test is meant to send data at rates up to 100 times greater than the radio systems currently used by spacecraft far from Earth.
美国宇航局希望在准备向月球和可能向火星发射宇航员的努力中改善来自深空的通信。激光测试旨在以比目前远离地球的航天器使用的无线电系统高100倍的速率发送数据。
More tests are planned as Psyche heads towards the main area of asteroids between the planets Mars and Jupiter. But Taters will not be making anymore appearances, JPL said.
随着Psyche飞向火星和木星之间的小行星主区域，将进行更多的测试。但是JPL表示，土豆泥将不再出现。
Joby Harris is an art director in JPL’s DesignLab. He could not be any happier, but he does not want his cat’s new public attention to go to his head.
Joby Harris是JPL设计实验室的艺术总监。他感到非常高兴，但他不希望他猫咪的新的公众关注让它变得自负。
“I’m celebrating his spotlight with him but making sure he keeps his paws on the carpet,” Harris said in an email Tuesday.
“我和他一起庆祝他的聚光灯，但要确保他保持在地毯上，”哈里斯在周二的一封电子邮件中说。
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Words in This Story
ultra – prefix extremely great or large
megabit – n. one million units of computer information represented as either 1 or 0
asteroid – n. any one of thousands of small planets that circle around the sun
to go to his head – idiom to let something you have done cause you to think of yourself as more important than you are
spotlight – n. public attention or notice
paw – n. the foot of an animal that has claws
carpet – n. a heavy fabric cover for a floor
