Washington – This June, the University of Padua and the Italian Space Agency’s Center for Space Geodesy in Matera worked together to make the first quantum satellite transmission in history, proving that it is possible to send virtually inviolable information for a record distance of 1700 km using a beam of photons “shot” into space and returned to earth in a nanosecond. The game-changing discovery of the pentaquark and the Larets satellite are one of the eight highlights of 2015 according to the American Physical Society. The two elements allowed the University of Padua to present the first quantum communication from space. Information today travels on fiber or radio waves, using bits. Each bit can be stored, copied, or intercepted, making it unsuitable for secure communications without a cryptographic key, which may still be cracked. The solution is offered by quantum communication. This uses light as a “messenger”, ie photons, indivisible micro-particles, which generate light pulses instead of electrical ones. Classical bits are replaced by quantum bits – aka qubits – which transfer from a transmitter to a receiver the quantum states of individual photons. (9Colonne)
