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A Warm Space Station Welcome for Cool New Hardware Astronaut Christina Koch recently gave a warm welcome to a
very cool arrival to the International Space Station: a new piece of hardware
for the Cold
Atom Lab, an experimental physics facility that chills atoms to
almost absolute zero, or minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273 degrees
Celsius). That's colder
than any known place in the universe.
The
Cold Atom Lab has been up and running in the space station's science module since
July 2018 and is operated remotely from NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Five groups of scientists on Earth are using
the Cold Atom Lab to conduct a variety of experiments to help answer questions
about how our world works at the smallest scales.
The
new hardware includes an instrument called an atom interferometer that will
allow scientists to make subtle measurements of gravity and probe fundamental
theories of gravity. Further development of this technology in space could lead
to improved inertial-force sensors, which could be used to design tools for enhanced
spacecraft navigation, to probe the composition and topology of planets and
other celestial bodies, and to study Earth's climate.
Chilling atoms to such low temperatures slows them down
significantly, enabling scientists to study them more easily. (Room-temperature
atoms move faster than the speed of sound, while ultracold atoms move slower
than a garden snail.) Ultracold atom physics has led to breakthroughs such as
the discovery of superfluidity and superconductivity, as well as the production
of a fifth state of matter, called a Bose-Einstein
Condensate (BEC). First predicted in the 1920s, BECs allow scientists
to observe quantum behaviors of atoms on a macroscopic scale.
Physicists have been using ultracold atom facilities in
Earth-bound labs for more than 20 years. But CAL is the first such facility in Earth
orbit, where the microgravity environment provides scientists longer observing
times for individual bunches of atoms and may allow for colder temperatures
than what can be achieved on the ground.
Ultracold atoms also provide a window into quantum
mechanics, where particles can behave in strange ways, such as spontaneously
passing through physical barriers or communicating instantaneously over long
distances. The study of quantum mechanics has led to the development of such ubiquitous
technologies as lasers, semiconductors and transistors. By making the leap into
Earth orbit, the Cold Atom Lab may open the door for the development of
quantum technologies in space.
About the size of a mini refrigerator, the Cold Atom Lab will
be equipped with the newly arrived hardware in 2020. Designed and built at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the Cold Atom Lab was is
sponsored by the International Space Station Program at NASA's Johnson Space
Center in Houston, and the Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and
Applications (SLPSRA) Division of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations
Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
For more information about the Cold Atom Lab, go here:
https://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/
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