In a world first , Chinese scientist have been able to find a planet using an infrared laser during the daytime . The approach was capable to find the Tiandu-1 satellite at a aloofness of about 130,000 kilometer ( 81,000 nautical mile ) from Earth , well beyond where most satellites are located . The orbiter and its similitude are , in fact , orbiting the Moon .

The optical maser was sent from a station on Earth , rebound off a retroreflector equipment on Tiandu-1 ( a exam satellite for lunar communicating and piloting ) , and reached Earth again in less than a second , where it was find by the 1.2 - meter scope at the Chinese Academy of Science ’s Yunnan Observatories . TheAcademycompares the achievement to hitting a undivided hair from 10 kilometers ( 6 miles ) away .

Lasers in quad are used for a mixed bag of reasons , and this is why it is exciting that scientists have been able to test this technology at such a distance , and in finical , they have been able to make it work during the day .

NASA has used an oreo - sized retroreflector to find two wiliness on the surface of the Moon : India ’s Vikram lander and Japan ’s Smart Lander for investigate Moon ( SLIM ) . The optical maser was shot by NASA’sLunar Reconnaissance Orbiter(LRO ) , which used its laser altimeter – a machine to map the Moon – to feel the two landers .

“ LRO ’s altimeter was n’t work up for this type of diligence , so the chances of pinpoint a midget retroreflector on the Moon ’s surface are already low , ” Xiaoli Sun , who led the team that work up SLIM ’s retroreflector at NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center as part of a partnership between NASA and JAXA , said in astatement .

LRO express that tracking is a possibility using lasers on the Moon , but it was 100 km ( 62 mile ) above these landers . The consecrated system that tracked Tiandu-1 is a whole newfangled approach , point that this is possible to do over a distance more than 1,000 times greater .

Lasers are authoritative in the time to come of recollective - aloofness communicating , which one day might bringhigh - speed communication to Mars . optical maser communications , also do it asDeep Space Optical Communications(DSOC ) , was instal on thePsyche space vehicle , and it has beensuccessfully testedover hundreds of millions of kilometre , fork over 100 times higher data rates than formal tuner waves .

There are limitations , however , and one of them is daytime . Hence , the excitement of a system like Yunnan Observatories ' one that can deal with the sunlight interference . DSOC is not an easily deployable system but technical school might be moving in the right-hand direction .

“ We have lots of skillful ideas on how to do it . And that will be a conversation that will be moderate [ … ] in the next few twelvemonth . But we do not have a plan in place to say that by such and such year we ’re go to have such and such base . ”