Solid, liquid and gas – these are the physical states most people know. The lesser-known state plasma consists of highly charged particles with extremely high kinetic energy.

But then there’s …

Bose-Einstein condensate: a state of matter that occurs very close to absolute zero. At this extremely low temperature, molecular motion almost stops and atoms begin to clump together.

Quark-gluon plasma: the state of matter with the highest energy level. It is basically the building blocks of matter existing in a soup resembling conditions just after the Universe was created.

Degenerate matter: the highly compressed state of matter which often exists in the cores of massive stars. The core’s gas is super compressed and the primary source of pressure is no longer thermal, but quantum.