Inside NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, scientists form bubbles from ultracold gas, shown in pink in this illustration. Lasers, also depicted, are used to cool the atoms, while an atom chip, illustrated in gray, generates magnetic fields to manipulate their shape, in combination with radio waves. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Produced inside NASAEstablished in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government that succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). It is responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. It's vision is "To discover and expand knowledge for the benefit of humanity."” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, the ultracold bubbles provide new opportunities to experiment with an exotic state of matter.
Since the days of NASA’s Apollo program, astronauts have documented (and contended with) how liquids like water behave differently in microgravity (see video below) than they do on Earth – coalescing into floating spheres instead of bottom-heavy droplets. Now, researchers have demonstrated this effect with a much more exotic material: gas cooled to nearly absolute zeroAbsolute zero is the theoretical lowest temperature on the thermodynamic temperature scale. At this temperature, all atoms of an object are at rest and the object does not emit or absorb energy. The internationally agreed-upon value for this temperature is −273.15 °C (−459.67 °F; 0.00 K).” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>absolute zero (minus 459 degrees FahrenheitThe Fahrenheit scale is a temperature scale, named after the German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit and based on one he proposed in 1724. In the Fahrenheit temperature scale, the freezing point of water freezes is 32 °F and water boils at 212 °F, a 180 °F separation, as defined at sea level and standard atmospheric pressure. ” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>Fahrenheit, or minus 273 degrees CelsiusThe Celsius scale, also known as the centigrade scale, is a temperature scale named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius. In the Celsius scale, 0 °C is the freezing point of water and 100 °C is the boiling point of water at 1 atm pressure.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>Celsius), the lowest temperature matter can reach.
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Water in space behaves… differently. Surface tension and capillary flow can be harnessed to move fluids in more efficient ways. What looks like fun could actually help us improve systems for moving fluids in microgravity, in things like fuel tanks for space travel. Credit: NASA Johnson Space Center
Using NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, the first-ever quantum physics facility aboard the International Space Station (ISS), researchers took samples of atoms cooled to within a millionth of a degree above absolute zero and shaped them into extremely thin, hollow spheres. The cold gas starts out in a small, round blob, like an egg yolk, and is sculpted into something more like a thin eggshell. On Earth, similar attempts fall flat: The atoms pool downward, forming something closer in shape to a contact lens than a bubble.
The milestone – described in a new research paper published on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, in the journal Nature – is only possible in the microgravity environment on the space station.
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Ultracold clouds of atoms are manipulated into hollow spheres inside NASA’s Cold Atom Lab aboard the International Space Station. In this series of images, clouds are seen at different stages of inflation, capturing how a single cloud of atoms looks as it is manipulated into a bubble. Credit: NASA/JPLThe Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The laboratory's primary function is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating NASA's Deep Space Network. JPL implements programs in planetary exploration, Earth science, space-based astronomy and technology development, while applying its capabilities to technical and scientific problems of national significance.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>JPL-Caltech
The ultracold bubbles could eventually be used in new kinds of experiments with an even more exotic material: a fifth state of matter (distinct from gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas) called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). In a BEC, scientists can observe the quantum properties of atoms at a scale visible to the naked eye. For instance, atoms and particles sometimes behave like solid objects and sometimes behave like waves – a quantum property called “wave-particle duality.”
The work requires no astronaut assistance. The ultracold bubbles are made inside Cold Atom Lab’s tightly sealed vacuum chamber using magnetic fields to gently manipulate the gas into different shapes. And the lab itself – which is about the size of a minifridge – is operated remotely from JPL.
The largest bubbles are about 1 millimeter in diameter and 1 micron thick (that’s one-thousandth of a millimeter, or 0.00004 inches). They are so thin and dilute that only thousands of atoms compose them. By comparison, a cubic millimeter of air on Earth contains somewhere around a billion trillion molecules.
“These are not like your average soap bubbles,” said David Aveline, lead author on the new work and a member of the Cold Atom Lab science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Nothing that we know of in nature gets as cold as the atomic gases produced in Cold Atom Lab. So we start with this very unique gas and study how it behaves when shaped into fundamentally different geometries. And, historically, when a material is manipulated in this way, very interesting physics can emerge, as well as new applications.”
Why It ‘Matters’
Exposing materials to different physical conditions is central to understanding them. It’s also often the first step to finding practical applications for those materials.
Conducting these types of experiments on the space station using the Cold Atom Lab enables scientists to remove the effects of gravity, which is often the dominant force impacting the motion and behavior of fluids. By doing so, scientists can better understand the other factors at play, such as a liquid’s surface tension or viscosity.
Now that scientists have created the ultracold bubbles, their next step will be to transition the ultracold gas composing the bubbles to the BEC state and see how it behaves.
“Some theoretical work suggests that if we work with one of these bubbles that is in the BEC state, we might be able to form vortices – basically, little whirlpools – in the quantum material,” said Nathan Lundblad, a professor of physics at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and the principal investigator of the new study. “That’s one example of a physical configuration that could help us understand BEC properties better and gain more insight into the nature of quantum matter.”
The field of quantum science has led to the development of modern technologies such as transistors and lasers. Quantum investigations done in Earth orbit could lead to improvements in spacecraft navigation systems and sensors for studying Earth and other solar system bodies. Ultracold atomAn atom is the smallest component of an element. It is made up of protons and neutrons within the nucleus, and electrons circling the nucleus.” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{“attribute”:”data-cmtooltip”, “format”:”html”}]”>atom facilities have been in operation on Earth for decades; however, in space, researchers can study ultracold atoms and BECs in new ways because the effects of gravity are reduced. This enables researchers to regularly reach colder temperatures and observe phenomena longer than they can on Earth.
“Our primary goal with Cold Atom Lab is fundamental research – we want to use the unique space environment of the space station to explore the quantum nature of matter,” said Jason Williams, project scientist for Cold Atom Lab at JPL. “Studying ultracold atoms in new geometries is a perfect example of that.”
Reference: “Observation of ultracold atomic bubbles in orbital microgravity” by R. A. Carollo, D. C. Aveline, B. Rhyno, S. Vishveshwara, C. Lannert, J. D. Murphree, E. R. Elliott, J. R. Williams, R. J. Thompson and N. Lundblad, 18 May 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04639-8
More About the Mission
Designed and built at JPL, Cold Atom Lab is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. BPS pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefitting life on Earth.
Source: SciTechDaily
