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NASA's Atomic Fridge Will Make the ISS the Coldest Known Place in the Universe (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Later this year, a small part of the International Space Station will become 10 billion times colder than the average temperature of the vacuum of space thanks to the Cold Atom Lab (CAL). Once it's on the space station, this atomic fridge will be the coldest known place in the universe and will allow physicists to 'see' into the quantum realm in a way that would never be possible on Earth.
In a normal room, "atoms are bouncing off one another in all directions at a few hundred meters per second," Rob Thompson, a NASA scientist working on CAL explained in a statement. CAL, however, can reach temperatures that are just one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero -- the point at which matter loses all its thermal energy -- which means that this chaotic atomic motion comes to a near standstill.
CAL uses magnetic fields and lasers traps to capture the gaseous atoms and cool them to nearly absolute zero. Since all the atoms have the same energy levels at that point, these effectively motionless atoms condense into a state of quantum matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate. This state of matter means that the atoms have the properties of one continuous wave rather discrete particles.
In a normal room, "atoms are bouncing off one another in all directions at a few hundred meters per second," Rob Thompson, a NASA scientist working on CAL explained in a statement. CAL, however, can reach temperatures that are just one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero -- the point at which matter loses all its thermal energy -- which means that this chaotic atomic motion comes to a near standstill.
CAL uses magnetic fields and lasers traps to capture the gaseous atoms and cool them to nearly absolute zero. Since all the atoms have the same energy levels at that point, these effectively motionless atoms condense into a state of quantum matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate. This state of matter means that the atoms have the properties of one continuous wave rather discrete particles.
Although Bose-Einstein condensates have been made in labs on Earth, gravity causes the particles to sink to the bottom of the device. Yet in the microgravity of low earth orbit, the Bose-Einstein condensate can hold its wave form for much longer—up to ten seconds—which allows researchers to better understand its properties.
love is just extroverted narcissism
FTA: One ten-billionth of one degree. I'm assuming Kelvin.
You're assuming the "average temperature of space" is 1K? I believe in interstellar space it's closer to 3K and near earth it's much higher. So maybe a closer estimate is 8x10^-9K. Of course I could be wrong.. please correct me.
Why the hell they couldn't just type the number instead of wearing out everyone's 0 key?
please correct me
I'm not assuming anything about the average temperature of space. FTA:
CAL, however, can reach temperatures that are just one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.