MIT researchers have developed a tiny light detector that may allow for super-fast broadband communications over interplanetary distances. Currently, even still images from other planets are difficult to retrieve.

"It can take hours with the existing wireless radio frequency technology to get useful scientific information back from Mars to Earth. But an optical link can do that thousands of times faster," said Karl Berggren, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).

Berggren, who is also affiliated with the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), developed the detector with colleagues from the RLE, Lincoln Laboratory and Moscow State Pedagogical University.

The result will be real-time collection of large amounts of data from space. The work may ultimately permit the transmission of color video between astronauts or equipment in outer space and scientists on Earth.