NASA wants to create the coldest point in the universe

NASA plans to bring a device to the ISS station to create a 100 million times more cold space than space.

The US aerospace agency (NASA) plans to conduct an experiment to create the coldest point in the entire universe in August this year. The device will be placed in a box and put on the International Space Station (ISS), Phys.org on March 6 reported.

Inside the box is a laser generator and "blade" of electrical energy from the same vacuum compartment. They will combine to suppress the gas atomic energy, making them so slow that they almost stop moving. The device is called the Cold Atomic Laboratory (CAL) designed by NASA. CAL is in the final assembly stage, before putting up space on SpaceX CRS-12 rocket.

The laser will cool atoms to unprecedented low temperatures.(Photo: NASA).

Gas atoms can be cooled to 1 part ratio above absolute zero (-273.15 degrees C). That turns them into the coldest point in space, 100 million times colder than space.

"Researching super-cold atoms can change people's understanding of matter, as well as the true nature of gravity. The experiment we do with CAL will provide information about gravity and energy. Dark, the most common forces in the universe, " said Robert Thompson of the CAL project.

When atoms are cooled to the expected extent, they will form a material state called the "Bose-Einstein condensate" (BEC). Familiar physics laws will lose meaning and quantum physics begins to have a bigger impact.

NASA has never observed or created BEC in space. On Earth, gravity causes the atom to be continually sucked to the ground, making them visible only in extremely short time. In the gravityless state of the ISS, supercooling atoms will keep the BEC state longer. CALs allow this material to last from 5 to 10 seconds, even longer with future technology.

This test can also promote the detection of dark matter. The current astronomical model divides the universe into 27% of dark matter, 68% of dark energy and only 5% of ordinary matter. With all the current technology, people still cannot observe 95% of the universe. CAL can open many secrets, far beyond the limits of today's physics.