"Spooky action at a a distance" via quantum entanglement has been known about for some time, and is used in quantum cryptography, but just how fast is it?
According to a new paper, reported in
this article, the lower bound is 1.38 x 10^4 times
c. That's around Warp Factor 9.999*. That's the lower bound, i.e. it's no slower than that.
At that speed, a message could be sent to Alpha Centauri in under 3 hours! Not exactly the equivalent of a Star Trek sub-space channel, but still pretty good.
I'm not sure how a quantum communication device would be used in practice, since this experiment involved entangled photons and lasers ... and quantum crypto uses fibre optics ... not exactly practical for space ships outside the solar system. Still, it seems like a step in the right direction.
Astronomy angle? Sure! The optical transmitting/receiving devices included telescopes; ED80s to be precise.
The orginal paper is
here.
*
The various Star Trek series weren't consistent with their definitions of warp speed, but there's a summary of it here - I'm using the STNG scale.
Edit: While this post was meant as infotainment, it wasn't meant to be wrong. Sadly, like much infotainment, it's a load of old codswallop. I've changed the thread title so that it won't become a troll magnet.