Now that really is cool: Nasa reveals experiment to create the coldest spot in the universe inside the International Space Station

Experiment will create an area of the ISS cooled to 100 pico-Kelvin



Will be one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero, where all the thermal activity of atoms theoretically stops

Could lead to new insights in quantum theory



Nasa has revealed a plan to make the International station station cool - in fact, to make a part of it the coldest spot in the universe.

Researchers say that studying matter at just above absolute zero could give them new insights into the quantum world.

This, they say, could revolutionise our understanding of the world, and lead to vastly faster electronics and lasers.

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The experiment will create an area of the ISS cooled to 100 pico-Kelvin, one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero, where all the thermal activity of atoms theoretically stops

HOW COLD WILL IT BE?

In the vast gulf between stars and galaxies, the temperature of gaseous matter routinely drops to 3 degrees K, or 454 degrees below zero Fahrenheit - but Nasa want to go even lower, to 100 pico-kelvin.

100 pico-Kelvin is just one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero, where all the thermal activity of atoms theoretically stops.

At such low temperatures, ordinary concepts of solid, liquid and gas are no longer relevant.

Atoms interacting just above the threshold of zero energy create new forms of matter that are essentially quantum, Nasa said.

'We’re going to study matter at temperatures far colder than are found naturally,' said Rob Thompson of JPL, who is head of the Cold Atom Lab.

The 'atomic refrigerator’ is scheduled to launch in 2016.

'We aim to push effective temperatures down to 100 pico-Kelvin,' said Thompson.



100 pico-Kelvin is just one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero, where all the thermal activity of atoms theoretically stops.



At such low temperatures, ordinary concepts of solid, liquid and gas are no longer relevant.



Atoms interacting just above the threshold of zero energy create new forms of matter that are essentially quantum, Nasa said.

The experiment will use lasers to cool materials. The space station is the best place to do this research, Nasa said, because microgravity allows researchers to cool materials to temperatures much colder than are possible on the ground.

Quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that describes the bizarre rules of light and matter on atomic scales.



In that realm, matter can be in two places at once; objects behave as both particles and waves; and nothing is certain: the quantum world runs on probability.

The team are set to begin their experiments looking at a unique phenomenon.



'We’ll begin by studying Bose-Einstein Condensates,' they said.

BOSE EINSTEIN CONDENSATES In 1995, researchers discovered that if you took a few million rubidium atoms and cooled them near absolute zero, they would merge into a single wave of matter.

In 2001, Eric Cornell of the National Institute of Standards & Technology and Carl Wieman of University of Colorado shared the Nobel Prize with Wolfgang Ketterle of MIT for their independent discovery of these condensates, which Albert Einstein and Satyendra Bose had predicted in the early 20th century. The laser cooling system will have five steps to reduce materials to just above absolute zero If you create two BECs and put them together, they don't mix like an ordinary gas.

Instead, they can 'interfere' like waves: thin, parallel layers of matter are separated by thin layers of empty space.

An atom in one BEC can add itself to an atom in another BEC and produce – no atom at all.

'The Cold Atom Lab will allow us to study these objects at perhaps the lowest temperatures ever,' says Nasa.

The lab is also a place where researchers can mix super-cool atomic gasses and see what happens.

'Mixtures of different types of atoms can float together almost completely free of perturbations,' explains Thompson, 'allowing us to make sensitive measurements of very weak interactions.



'This could lead to the discovery of interesting and novel quantum phenomena.'

The space station is the best place to do this research.



Microgravity allows researchers to cool materials to temperatures much colder than are possible on the ground.

'It’s a basic principle of thermodynamics that when a gas expands, it cools,' said Thompson.

How the experiment will get there

'Most of us have hands-on experience with this. If you spray a can of aerosols, the can gets cold.'

Quantum gases are cooled in much the same way.



In place of an aerosol can, however, we have a ‘magnetic trap.’

'On the ISS, these traps can be made very weak because they do not have to support the atoms against the pull of gravity.



'Weak traps allow gases to expand and cool to lower temperatures than are possible on the ground.'