Canadian Magic

Yes, it's what you get when you shine a laser pointer through a Canadian bill, in this case a $20:

J says that if he was president, he'd make "US money cool too." I said that I would rather that he got US internet speeds up to international standards, since even the Moon gets faster Internet than we do. Yes, really.

By Colin Schultz

SMITHSONIAN.COM

MAY 30, 2014

The Moon may now have a better wireless signal than your local coffee shop. In a test last fall, NASA and MIT researchers showed off a fancy new rig that uses pulses of laser light to shoot data across the vast distances between Earth and our satellite some 238,900 miles away. The results of this first test are set to be presented by the researchers at a conference on June 9th, says Wired UK.

NASA's laser-based long-distance internet has been under development for the past 3 years, and last fall it was put to the ultimate long-distance upload test, says the Optical Society:

The team made history last year when their Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) transmitted data over the 384,633 kilometers between the moon and Earth at a download rate of 622 megabits per second, faster than any radio frequency (RF) system. They also transmitted data from the Earth to the moon at 19.44 megabits per second, a factor of 4,800 times faster than the best RF uplink ever used.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/you-can-now-get-high-speed-internet-moon-180951614/#yKfrKgw8LLzQhLSx.99 Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter