China successfully teleports an object from earth to its satellite "Micius" 500 kilometre above the ground.
This marks the very first time that an object has been teleported into orbit, smashing the record for the longest ever distance for entanglement.
Teleportation has already been used successfully in labs on earth, however such an out-of-this-world distance has previously been limited, partly due to photons interacting with atmospheric matter.
Progress with teleportation captures the imagination. Imagine the possibilities of putting out complex information and objects into the far reaches of space
But before you get too excited, this process did not involve moving the photon in a physical sense and so you probably won’t be able to beam yourself up to the moon any time soon.
Instead, this amazing feat was achieved through a science-fiction-worthy process known as ‘quantum entanglement’, where two particles act as one without sharing any physical connection whatsoever.
Ian Walmsley, Hooke Professor of Experimental Physics at Oxford University, offers the following explanation:
"How it works, its really communicating information in a way that harnesses quantum mechanics. So they have information in one photon that they have on earth and a second photon that is up in the satellite. and they are able to transfer the information from one to another."
So don't get ahead of your horses as to start imagining yourself getting teleported across space. This ain't star wars, but maybe one day this feat would be achieved too.
Source: UNILAD