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For the first time in history, an international team of physicists has managed to produce the strange state of matter known as Bose-Einstein. condensate (BEC) in space. In their new article, physicists discuss the rocket launched into space with a tiny device that they created in order to perform experiments on the rocket when it fell in free fall.
A Bose-Einstein condensate is created by taking gas atoms that have an extremely low density and cool them to a level very close to absolute zero (technically to a billionth of a degree). With temperatures as low as these, atoms begin to behave strangely and transform into a single macroscopic quantum wave, turning them into a strange state of matter. And, as reported Science Magazine German physicists have managed to produce such a BEC in the space.
Physicists have chosen to carry out their experiments in space because, unlike laboratory work, the space has no gravity. . To be studied, a BEC must normally be removed from the trap of electromagnetic fields and light and in a vacuum chamber it would fall to the ground in only a fraction of a second, which made it extremely difficult to examine.
However, at the bottom of the space, this problem does not exist, since a Bose-Einstein condensate is released, it can simply float without having to attack the gravity, which allows the physicists of perform experiments that could never be conducted in the confines of a camera. laboratory. These experiences also include some pretty interesting things, like learning more about its quantum nature by creating BEC bubbles.
A team of German physicists produced Bose-Einstein condensate in space. Here's what it means for physics research. #science #space #physical #research #matter #work #nature #Universe https://t.co / tk7wYLlvhF
– Times and Tech (@TimesandTech) 19 October 2018
To produce this strange state of matter, physicists have embarked on the creation of an automated platform containing a chip containing 87 rubidium, lasers, a source of energy and electronic components trapped inside. The platform was then attached to a rocket launched January 23, 2017 in Sweden and carried within a radius of 150 miles. The physicists managed to create a CLB in just 1.6 seconds and performed their experiments during the six-minute zero gravity period as the rocket landed on Earth, which included an impressive 110 different measurements. preprogrammed that had been taken.
Physicists actually launched NASA's Cold Atom Lab in May to study Bose-Einstein condensates. In this case, Germany won the race to create the first BEC in the space. However, between the Cold Atom Laboratory and the exciting new results from Germany, physicists will learn more than they had imagined with this state of the art.
The new study on Bose-Einstein condensate created in space has been published. in Nature .
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