China’s Micius satellite distributed entangled photons across more than a thousand kilometers. The 2017 experiment beamed quantum-correlated light to distant ground stations. It laid groundwork for a future quantum internet.
Entanglement from orbit
The source is aloft. A satellite generated entangled photon pairs. They rained down to Earth.
Record distance
Reach was vast. Correlations held over more than 1,200 kilometers. Prior records fell.
Quantum communication
The goal is security. Entanglement enables tamper-evident key sharing. Cryptography benefits.
Beating loss
Space helps. Vacuum avoids the fiber losses that limit ground links. Distance grows.
A network vision
Ambition is large. The work points toward a global quantum network. Nodes could link continents.
Ongoing progress
Follow-ups continued. Later experiments extended and refined the feat. The field advances.
The bottom line
The Micius satellite distributed entangled photons over 1,200 kilometers in 2017, a record. It supports secure quantum communication by beating fiber losses. It advanced the vision of a quantum internet.
