Q&A: General Astronomy and Space Science
Q:
I would like to have some information on how the Two States of
Plasma and Bose-Einstein Condensation works, and what are its
properties.
A:
When certain types of atoms (with even atomic spin number) are
cooled to nearly absolute zero, they all fall into the same
quantum state, and become a sort of super atom called a Bose
Einstein condensate. One of the properties of the condensate is
that the atoms move very slowly. At the other extreme, when a
gas gets very hot, the electrons are stripped from the atoms,
and the gas becomes a plasma. Most of the universe, and
virtually all of the matter observed by Chandra is in the plasma
state.
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