NASA creates fifth state of matter aboard the International Space Station

NASA recently revealed that there is a fifth state of matter wherein atoms get so cold that they almost stop behaving like individual atoms. While uploading a video on YouTube, NASA informed that the atoms in the above-mentioned state act as a wave instead on individual particles. The US space agency said that that they repeatedly managed to achieve this state of matter aboard the International Space Station (ISS). 

The revelation was made by NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory atop the ISS back in 2018 for the first time. However, this it is was the first time that the state of matter was achieved in the lower Earth orbit. In the YouTube video, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory highlighted the advantages of creating this state of matter in space. It also noted how the space agency is able to achieve this state in space. 

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NASA said that the fifth state of matter, called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), was first achieved by scientists more than 25-years-ago. The BEC is known to have extraordinary properties which are totally online solids, liquids, gases and plasmas. At the time of the delivery, the achievement reportedly garnered Nobel Prize and changed physics altogether. 

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Could give deeper insight into how world works  

According to the space agency, BECs are used to make headway in quantum mechanics, which basically focuses on the behaviour of atoms and subatomic particles. The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) aboard the ISS is a physics user facility. NASA said that CAL produces clouds of ultra-cooled atoms (BECs), chilled to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. This temperature is even colder than the average temperature of deep space, NASA said. 

The US space agency said, “Experiments with this fifth state of matter could lend deeper insight into how our world works on a fundamental level. For example, scientists will be able to measure the very faint tug of gravity that is still present aboard the station, and put Albert Einstein’s theory about this fundamental force to the test”. 

“Studies of Bose-Einstein condensates aboard the station could also lead to new technologies, like better tools for navigation and more precise clocks,” NASA added. 

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