Strange state of matter produced in space for the first time | Science

For decades, experimenters have used laser light and electromagnetic fields to cool gas flushes up to a billionth of a degree from absolute zero. At such icy temperatures, something odd may happen: atoms can form a single macroscopic quantum wave and form a strange matter state called Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Today, a team of German physicists has created a CLB in the space.

Working in space has a major advantage over a terrestrial laboratory: the absence of gravity. To be sounded, a BEC must be released from its trap of bright and electromagnetic fields and, in a split second, it falls on the floor of the vacuum chamber that houses the experiment. But in the weightlessness of space, a BEC released from its trap should float, allowing researchers to try experiments they can not do on the ground, such as making BEC bubbles to probe its quantum nature.

To create the BEC in space, the researchers designed a special automated platform in which the rubidium atoms were trapped on a chip. The platform flew on a small rocket (above) launched from northern Sweden on January 23, 2017 and reached an altitude of 243 kilometers. During the six minutes of weightlessness predicted by the flight, the researchers conducted a CLB and performed more than 100, as reported by the team today at Nature.

The German team beat its US competitors in the race at the first BEC of space. In May, physicists from the United States launched NASA's fully automated Cold Atom laboratory in the International Space Station, which allows students to study BEC indefinitely. In July, researchers announced that they had completed a CLB in space. If all goes according to plan, it is only a first step towards more complex and interesting results.