Scientists create coldest spot ever on ISS
Using a compact lab called the Cold Atom Lab and launched to ISS in a Cygnus freighter in May, scientists have now successfully created coldest spot ever.
The government agency created atoms known as Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) for the first time in orbit to focus on their unusual quantum behavior. A team of astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) was able to take the Cold Atom Lab (CAL), which was loaded with lasers and a vacuum chamber, to understand how BECs interact with gravity.
…The scientists produced the BECs with temperatures as “as low as 100 nanoKelvin, or one ten-millionth of one Kelvin above absolute zero,” NASA added, in the statement. Zero Kelvin, also known as absolute zero, is the equivalent of minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit. The average temperature of space is approximately 3 Kelvin or minus 454 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a sense, they didn’t so much create a cold spot as create conditions that allowed the Bose-Einstein condensates to form so that they could study them. The article provides some background about this research, which is focused mostly on trying to figure out how to unify quantum mechanics (which explains the interactions at the atomic level) with general relativity (which explains the actions of matter and energy at large scales). Physicists have been trying unify both for decades, with little success.
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Using a compact lab called the Cold Atom Lab and launched to ISS in a Cygnus freighter in May, scientists have now successfully created coldest spot ever.
The government agency created atoms known as Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) for the first time in orbit to focus on their unusual quantum behavior. A team of astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) was able to take the Cold Atom Lab (CAL), which was loaded with lasers and a vacuum chamber, to understand how BECs interact with gravity.
…The scientists produced the BECs with temperatures as “as low as 100 nanoKelvin, or one ten-millionth of one Kelvin above absolute zero,” NASA added, in the statement. Zero Kelvin, also known as absolute zero, is the equivalent of minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit. The average temperature of space is approximately 3 Kelvin or minus 454 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a sense, they didn’t so much create a cold spot as create conditions that allowed the Bose-Einstein condensates to form so that they could study them. The article provides some background about this research, which is focused mostly on trying to figure out how to unify quantum mechanics (which explains the interactions at the atomic level) with general relativity (which explains the actions of matter and energy at large scales). Physicists have been trying unify both for decades, with little success.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Chill.
The absence of heat.
Chill. My wet suit has some how slightly shrunk.
Age.
The absence of …
A good show with Dr. Anita Senupta on this subject.
https://thespaceshow.com/show/29-jun-2018/broadcast-3142-dr.-anita-sengupta-special-time-9am-pdt