NASA receives a Deep Space Optical Communication from experts say a distance of nearly 10 million miles

Lets put this in perspective:

Earth to Moon Distance: The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is about 238,855 miles. So, 10 million miles is roughly 42 times the distance to the Moon.

Around the World: The Earth’s circumference is approximately 24,901 miles. Traveling 10 million miles would be equivalent to circling the Earth over 401 times.

To Mars and Beyond: The average distance to Mars from Earth is about 140 million miles. Thus, 10 million miles is about 1/14th of the way to Mars.

Daily Commuting: If you drove 30 miles to work every day (60 miles round trip), it would take over 166 years to travel 10 million miles.

NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) project aboard the Psyche spacecraft has marked a ground-breaking achievement in space communication. The DSOC experiment successfully transmitted test data using a near-infrared laser from a record distance of nearly 10 million miles, or about 40 times further than the Moon’s distance from Earth. This significant milestone took place in November 2023 and represents the furthest-ever demonstration of optical communications in space