Thursday, 2 August 2018

NASA Created a Rare, Exotic State of Matter in Space

      Things got very chill on the International Space Station.
        Credit: NASA

NASA has cooled a cloud of rubidium atoms to ten-millionth of a degree above absolute zero, producing the fifth, exotic state of matter in space. The experiment also now holds the record for the coldest object we know of in space, though it isn't yet the coldest thing humanity has ever created. (That record still belongs to a laboratory at MIT.)
The Cold Atom Lab (CAL) is a compact quantum physics machine, a device built to work in the confines of the International Space Station (ISS) that launched into space in May. Now, according to a statement from NASA, the device has produced its first Bose-Einstein condensates, the strange conglomerations of atoms that scientists use to see quantum effects play out at large scales.
"Typically, BEC experiments involve enough equipment to fill a room and require near-constant monitoring by scientists, whereas CAL is about the size of a small refrigerator and can be operated remotely from Earth," Robert Shotwell, who leads the experiment from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in the statement.

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