Facebook to Invest In Space

Tech giants are starting to get into space exploration. What are they looking for? Why is Facebook building observatories?

Mount Wilson in California has always interested scientists. Due to its favorable location, it has housed observatories since 1949. At the moment PointView Tech, Facebook’s subsidiary, is handling construction of two observatories.

The new observatories will reportedly connect with the satellite called Athena which will transmit broadband access to third-world countries. The company is betting on laser and optical communication primarily because is offers a higher speed of data transmission compared to other communication methods.

Details are scarce at the moment but earlier the media have reported that Facebook tested the transmission of its “laser Internet” from a small plane to the Earth. The speed was hovering around 10 gigabytes per second but the signal had a hard time penetrating thick layers of clouds. The company is rumored to be getting ready for a new round of tests.