Tech Explorist
NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory on the International Space Station creating something even colder than a winter day in Antarctica dip as low as -120ºF (-85ºC) or -280ºF (-173ºC).
This will be the first facility in orbit to produce clouds of “ultracold” atoms, which can reach a fraction of a degree above absolute zero: -459ºF (-273ºC), the absolute coldest temperature that matter can reach.
Until now, even nature could not hit temperatures achieved in laboratories like CAL.
It suggests that the orbiting facility is regularly the coldest known spot in the universe.
NASA‘s Cold Atom Laboratory on the International Space Station is regularly the coldest known spot in the universe. But why are scientists producing clouds of atoms a fraction of a degree above absolute zero? And why do they need to do it in space?
The reason is Quantum physics.
Seven months after its May 21, 2018, dispatch to the space station from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, CAL is producing ultracold atoms daily. Five groups of researchers will complete trials on CAL amid its first year, and three investigations are already underway.
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