light

This still image was taken from a new NASA movie of the sun based on data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, showing the wide range of wavelengths – invisible to the naked eye – that the telescope can view. SDO converts the wavelengths into an image humans can see, and the light is colorized into a rainbow of colors.

Via Science Alert:

At the moment when we talk with satellites, we use polarised light, which can only vibrate on a single plane, because it's not affected by turbulence in the air. But this is extremely slow, as only one bit of information can be carried by each particle of light.

In order to speed this up, physicists have been looking for a way to encode more information into photons - and in the '90s they began investigating twisting light, which can be sent like a corkscrew across long distances. This is known as orbital angular momentum, or OAM, and it opens up the potential for ridiculously fast and secure communication.