Category: Physics

The coldest place in the Universe is now on the ISS

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date July 30, 2018
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As soon as NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) began producing ultra-cold atoms, the International Space Station (ISS) became the coldest place in the known universe. The formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, the fifth state of matter occurred in NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) at a temperature of 130 nanoKelvin or less than 10 billionths of a degree above Absolute Zero. Absolute zero, or zero Kelvin, is equal to minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 273 Celsius. Previously, the record-cold was achieved in Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle’s laboratory at M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): half-a-billionth of a degree above absolute zero.

Soon, the ISS Will Be the Coldest Known Place in the Universe

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date May 20, 2018
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NASA is going to launch a facility to the International Space Station (ISS) that will contain a spot 10 *billion* times colder than the outer space. The new Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) facility, which will operate in microgravity, could help answer some big questions in modern physics, allowing researchers to dive deep into the quantum realm in a way that would never be possible here on Earth. Inside the Cold Atom Lab, scientists will use lasers and magnetic traps to slow atoms down until they are almost motionless.^{Notes 1} Then, the atoms can form a distinct state of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).^{Notes 2} In this state, the wave characteristics of matter become more noticeable. On Earth, the pull of gravity causes atoms to settle toward the ground, ad the freely evolving BECs are typically only observable for fractions of a second. But, inside the CAL, ultra-cold atoms can hold their wave-like forms longer while in a freefall (microgravity), giving scientists more time to observe and understand physics at its most basic level.

Where is the coldest known place in the Universe? It may sound strange, but today, it is here on Earth: in 1995, in a laboratory in M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the German physicist Wolfgang Ketterle and his colleagues have cooled a sodium gas to the lowest temperature ever recorded, only half-a-billionth of a degree above absolute zero.

But, soon, this record will be broken. NASA is going to launch a facility to the International Space Station (ISS) that will contain a spot 10 billion times colder than outer space. The new Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) facility, which will operate in microgravity, could help answer some big questions in modern physics, allowing researchers to dive deep into the quantum realm in a way that would never be possible here on Earth.

Astronomy Climate Physics Solar System Space Exploration

Want to Become a Citizen Scientist for NASA? Now you can

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date April 13, 2018
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NASA identified an aurora-related celestial phenomenon STEVE with the help of citizen scientist program — STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) and the Milky Way at Childs Lake, Manitoba, Canada. The picture is a composite of 11 images stitched together. STEVE is short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. It is a rare type of aurora, a thin purple ribbon of light. Scientists have now learned, despite its ordinary name, that STEVE may be an extraordinary puzzle piece in painting a better picture of how Earth's magnetic fields function and interact with charged particles in space. People were out observing the aurora and they started noticing something that was overhead as well, when they were seeing the aurora far to the northern regions. Liz MacDonald, a space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the leader of The Aurorasaurus team, says: *"It was unlike most aurora. (They) talked to scientists, but we didn't know what it was. They said we'll keep taking observations and we call it STEVE in the meantime"*. "STEVE is mostly a very narrow purple arc and sometimes it has these little green features that go along with it as well that are kind of like waving fingers, or a picket fence. That means that there's plasma physics happening up there to cause that light, and to make these little discreet features that we don't understand yet." Image Courtesy: Krista Trinder. Image source: NASA Goddard Flight Center Photo Stream on Flickr

You can help NASA on some projects: for instance, citizen scientists helped NASA identify an aurora-related celestial phenomenon, now called STEVE. Want to become a citizen scientist? You can find projects on the NASA website.

Physics

Stephen Hawking dies at 76

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date March 14, 2018
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Stephen Hawking in Cambridge — Sad news for the science and the humanity: Professor Stephen Hawking (born 8 January 1942) died in his home in Cambridge, England, early in the morning of 14 March 2018. From astronauts to world leaders, tributes have poured in for the modern British physicist and author.

Very sad news for the science and the humanity: Professor Stephen Hawking (born 8 January 1942) died in his home in Cambridge, England, early in the morning of 14 March 2018. From astronauts to world leaders, tributes have poured in for the modern British physicist and author.

Astronomy Physics Planet Earth

The hottest place in the Universe exists on Earth

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date December 29, 2017
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The hottest place in the Universe is on Earth and it is much hotter than a supernova — After a supernova, a newly formed neutron core has an initial temperature of about 100 billion kelvin, 6000 times the temperature of the sun’s core. The record temperature, that achieved at the LHC, over 5 trillion K and perhaps as high as 5.5 trillion K is around 5000-5500 times hotter than that! Or about 30-33 million times hotter than that of the sun’s core! During the experiment, the hottest place in the Universe was here on Earth. Image: Artist’s impression of a Type II supernova explosion which involves the destruction of a massive supergiant star. A Type II supernova results from the rapid collapse and violent explosion of a massive star. A star must have at least 8 times, but no more than 40 to 50 times, the mass of the Sun (M☉) to undergo this type of explosion.

The hottest place in the Universe exists here on Earth, like the coldest place in the Universe. Both these extreme temperatures are not natural, they are human-made. The coldest temperature was achieved in the German physicist and professor of physics Wolfgang Ketterle’s laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The hottest temperature, also recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, was achieved at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

On 13 August 2012 scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, Geneva, Switzerland, announced that they had achieved temperatures of over 5 trillion K and perhaps as high as 5.5 trillion K (more than 9.9 trillion °F). The team had been using the ALICE experiment to smash together lead ions at 99% of the speed of light to create a quark-gluon plasma – an exotic state of matter believed to have filled the universe just after the Big Bang.

Physics Astronomy Planet Earth

The coldest place in the Universe exists on Earth

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date November 14, 2017
No Comments on The coldest place in the Universe exists on Earth

In 1995, Wolfgang Ketterle and his colleagues have cooled a sodium gas to the lowest temperature ever recorded: only half-a-billionth of a degree above absolute zero, which is -273.15°C (-459.67°F), and actually unreachable. They managed to achieve this at Ketterle's lab, MIT, Cambridge. This accomplishment still holds the record according to Guinness World Records for lowest temperature. They bested the previous record by a factor of six, and is the first time that a gas was cooled below 1 nanokelvin (one-billionth of a degree). In doing so, Ketterle and his team discovered a new form of matter, the *Bose-Einstein condensate*, where the particles march in lockstep instead of flitting around independently. The discovery of Bose-Einstein condensates was recognized with the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics, which Ketterle shared with his Boulder colleagues Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman.

It may sound strange, but the coldest place in the Universe is not anywhere in the vast, cold outer space – it exists here on Earth. Well, it is not actually a natural place you can come across. It is in a laboratory in M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Astronomy Physics

LIGO detects gravitational waves from neutron star merger

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date October 17, 2017
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Two Neutron Stars Collide - explosion — The merger of two neutron stars is an extremely powerful event. Gravitational waves (pale arcs) bleed away orbital energy, causing the stars to move closer together and merge. As the stars collide, some of the debris blasts away in particle jets moving at nearly the speed of light, producing a brief burst of gamma rays (magenta). In addition to the ultra-fast jets powering the gamma-rays, the merger also generates slower moving debris. An outflow driven by accretion onto the merger remnant emits rapidly fading ultraviolet light (violet). A dense cloud of hot debris stripped from the neutron stars just before the collision produces visible and infrared light (blue-white through red). The UV, optical and near-infrared glow is collectively referred to as a kilonova. Later, once the remnants of the jet directed toward us had expanded into our line of sight, X-rays (blue) were detected.

On October 16, 2017, for the first time ever in history, scientists were able to detect gravitational waves from two neutron stars’ merger.

Carl Sagan’s famous quote says “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” In that famous quote, Sagan makes reference to the whole Universe started off with hydrogen and helium, all stars produce helium, and then stars over a certain mass threshold produce carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and lots of heavier elements – which are also the source of the life on Earth. The star stuff is inside us – every living thing on Earth.

But, even stars aren’t powerful enough to create heavy elements like silver, gold, and cesium. Since the 1950s, scientists have wondered: where do most of the elements in the periodic table come from?

Solar System Astronomy Physics Planet Earth

Here’s why we see only one side of the Moon [Tidal locking explained]

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date August 3, 2017
2 Comments on Here’s why we see only one side of the Moon [Tidal locking explained]

Why do we see only one side of the moon: Moon in the sky over trees — You have probably heard references made to the "dark side" of the Moon - there's even a Pink Floyd album with that name. But, in fact, there's no "dark side" of the moon. Because it is not illuminated by the Earth, it is illuminated by the *Sun*. All the surface of the moon lit by the Sun as the Moon rotates. But, we always see the "same side" of the moon from the Earth. Photo: pexels.com

Why do we see only one side of the Moon? You have probably heard references being made to the “dark side” of the Moon – there’s even a Pink Floyd album with that name. But there’s no “dark side” of the moon because our satellite is not illuminated by the Earth, it is illuminated by the Sun. All the surface of the moon gets lit by the Sun as the Moon rotates. But, yes, we see only one side of the moon, and here’s why.

Space Exploration Physics

Why do Astronauts Float in Space? [Microgravity Explained]

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date May 3, 2017
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Why do astronauts float in space? Photo: Chris Hadfield, the ex-commander of the International Space Station while recording a revised cover version of David Bowie's famous song Space Oddity on board. — We see images and videos from the International Space Station (ISS) where astronauts float in space freely. Have you ever wondered why? Why do astronauts float in space? Photo: Chris Hadfield, the ex-commander of the International Space Station while recording a revised cover version of David Bowie's famous song "Space Oddity" on board.

We see images and videos from the International Space Station (ISS) where astronauts float in space freely. That’s because they’re in space, so there is no gravitational force of Earth there, right?

Wrong.

The International Space Station is in Low Earth Orbit (see notes 1) with an altitude of between 330 and 435 km (205 and 270 mi). It is so close to the Earth that on a clear day easily visible to the naked eye from the ground as it is the third brightest object in the sky (NASA has actually launched a new interactive map at its Spot the Station website).

At that altitude, the Earth’s gravity is about 90 percent of what it is on the planet’s surface – still pretty strong, right? To reduce the gravity of the Earth by a factor of one million, one needs to be at a distance of 6 million kilometers (around 3,728,227 miles) from the Earth – more than fifteen times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Solar System Astronomy Physics

Leaving the Solar System at the Speed of Light [Video]

Post author By M. Özgür Nevres
Post date January 19, 2017
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What if we could make a spaceship that is capable of leaving the solar system at the speed of light? How much time would it take to enter interstellar space?

Our Solar system is big, and vast, despite it being really small compared to our galaxy, not to mention the complete universe. To put this into perspective, you can think of yourself as a photon emitted by the Sun. It takes about 8 minutes to reach the Earth after a photon has been emitted from the Sun’s surface. And it takes 5 hours to get out to Pluto from the Earth. The edge of the Solar System is far beyond the orbit of Pluto.