NASA’s recently launched asteroid hunter, Psyche, is designed to give us a look at a body that could resemble depths far within the Earth, where we can never go. But one instrument tagging along for a ride is exciting scientists who specialize in a completely different field — that of space communications. Since the dawn of the Space Age, they have depended on radio waves, just a sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum. But scientists hope to soon expand into another part of the spectrum. Their aim is to add lasers to our cosmic communications toolkit.
The Psyche spacecraft’s main mission is to explore a 144-mile-long, potato-shaped asteroid with an orbit roughly three times farther from the Sun than Earth’s. A leading theory holds that the target asteroid, also named Psyche (16 Psyche, to be exact), is the metal core of a once hopeful planet whose rocky surface was stripped away ...
