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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 07 2017, @05:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the I've-got-a-bridge-to-sell-ya dept.

NASA will create Bose-Einstein condensates in the microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station, where they can last for longer periods of time:

This summer, an ice chest-sized box will fly to the International Space Station, where it will create the coolest spot in the universe. [...] Its instruments are designed to freeze gas atoms to a mere billionth of a degree above absolute zero. That's more than 100 million times colder than the depths of space.

[...] NASA has never before created or observed Bose-Einstein condensates in space. On Earth, the pull of gravity causes atoms to continually settle towards the ground, meaning they're typically only observable for fractions of a second.

But on the International Space Station, ultra-cold atoms can hold their wave-like forms longer while in freefall. That offers scientists a longer window to understand physics at its most basic level. Thompson estimated that CAL (Cold Atom Laboratory) will allow Bose-Einstein condensates to be observable for up to five to 10 seconds; future development of the technologies used on CAL could allow them to last for hundreds of seconds.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 07 2017, @10:21PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 07 2017, @10:21PM (#476197) Journal

    I think it is more complicated than that... your narrative would lead to one solid object with no atmosphere.

    I sure hope you aren't suggesting that gravity is responsible for every dynamic of atmosphere. The Earth's gravity isn't responsible for solar influx. Nor is it responsible for the self-collision of atmosphere.