Nasa has streamed an ultra-high-definition video of a cat back to Earth from the depths of space.

The 15-second clip of Taters the cat was sent via laser - and fittingly shows it chasing a laser beam.

Footage of the orange tabby traveled 19 million miles - some 80 times the distance from Earth to the Moon.

Nasa hopes the laser tech it tested will eventually improve communications with more remote parts of the solar system.

Taters, whose paws remained firmly on Earth, are owned by an employee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

The video was uploaded to a spacecraft launched with SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on 13 October and was streamed on 11 December.

"Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections," said JPL electronics lead Ryan Rogalin.

The video was received by the Hale telescope at the Palomar Observatory, where it was downloaded.

From there it was streamed to the JPL and played there in real-time.

Mr Rogalin said the connection over which the video was sent from the Palomar observatory to the JPL base was slower than the signal transmitting the clip from space.

"JPL's DesignLab did an amazing job helping us showcase this technology. Everyone loves Taters," he added.