Explain This To Me...
Explain this to me...
“Quantum cryptography uses the quantum properties of photons to guarantee perfect secrecy. But one of its lesser known limitations is that it only works if Alice and Bob are perfectly aligned so that they can carry out well-defined polarization measurements on the photons as they arrive. Physicists say that Alice and Bob must share the same reference frame. That’s OK if Alice and Bob are in their own ground-based labs, but it’s a problem in many other applications, such as ground-to-satellite communications or even in chip-to-chip communications, because it’s hard to keep chips still over distances of the order of the wavelength of light. Now a group of UK physicists have developed a way of doing quantum cryptography without sharing a reference frame. The trick is to use entangled triplets of photons, so-called qutrits, rather than entangled pairs. This solves the problem by embedding it in an extra abstract dimension, which is independent of space. So, as long as both Alice and Bob know the way in which all these abstract dimensions are related, the third provides a reference against which measurements of the other two can be made. That allows Alice and Bob to make any measurements they need without having to agree ahead of time on a frame of reference. That could be an important advance enabling the widespread use of quantum cryptography.”
More Posts from Astrotidbits-blog and Others
http://player.vimeo.com/video/62255585
Comet Panstarrs captured in gorgeous time-lapse above the skies of Boulder, CO by Patrick Cullis. Lovely stuff.
Comets are mysterious frozen chunks of stellar and planetary debris, these dirty snowballs that wander in darkness until their tails are blown bright and wide by solar winds. Some follow paths so random and eccentric that they may pass a star only once, or perhaps not at all, instead floating through interstellar space, never to be known. But for those fleeting moments, like Panstarrs’ current passage, they are like icy candles lit for our enjoyment by the breath of the sun.
A song of ice and fire, indeed.
NASA scientists are closer than ever to finding life outside of Earth.
follow @the-future-now
Eclipse News at AstroTidbits
Don’t know how to prepare for the coming total eclipse of the sun? Get some info at http://www.astrotidbits.com and be ready.
What Happened to Mars?
Billions of years ago, Mars was a very different world. Liquid water flowed in long rivers that emptied into lakes and shallow seas. A thick atmosphere blanketed the planet and kept it warm.
Today, Mars is bitter cold. The Red Planet’s thin and wispy atmosphere provides scant cover for the surface below.
Our MAVEN Mission
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is part of our Mars Scout program. This spacecraft launched in November 2013, and is exploring the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind.
The purpose of the MAVEN mission is to determine the state of the upper atmosphere of Mars, the processes that control it and the overall atmospheric loss that is currently occurring. Specifically, MAVEN is exploring the processes through which the top of the Martian atmosphere can be lost to space. Scientists think that this loss could be important in explaining the changes in the climate of Mars that have occurred over the last four billion years.
New Findings
Today, Nov. 5, we will share new details of key science findings from our ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT. This event will be broadcast live on NASA Television. Have questions? Use #askNASA during the briefing.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Spacex CRS-10
Resembling our Moon, and with a similar atmosphere, Mercury has enough activity in its interior to generate a small magnetic field. Join guides Denton Ebel and Carter Emmart for an up-close examination of our solar system’s smallest planet.
Comets may hold the secret to the origin of life on Earth
We’ve studied life on Earth extensively, but we still have no idea where it came from. Some scientists think it may have spontaneously arisen on Earth by some unknown process. Others think the ingredients for life were delivered here by comets crashing into Earth in the early days of the solar system. The latter theory just got a huge boost.
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Just a typical Saturday in our courtyard calling Ohio using Morse code.
Infrared Jupiter looks hot as Juno spacecraft approaches
NASA’s mission to explore the Jovian system has almost reached its destination, and telescopes on Earth are capturing some especially fiery images of the planet to help.
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