Laser-Blasted Plasma Is Cooler Than Deep Space...Literally By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer Janu

[Judi Lynn]

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | January 4, 2019 12:21pm ET

Researchers who make the coldest plasmas in the universe just found a way to make them even colder — by blasting them with lasers.

The scientists cooled the plasma to around 50-thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, about 50 times colder than in deep space.

This chilly plasma could reveal how similar plasmas behave at the centers of white dwarf stars and deep in the core of gas planets like our cosmic neighbor, Jupiter, researchers reported in a new study. [The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]

Plasma is a type of gas, but it's different enough to be recognized as one of the four fundamental states of matter (alongside gas, liquid and solid). In plasma, a significant number of electrons have been separated from their atoms, creating a state where free electrons zip around ions, or atoms that have either a positive or negative charge.

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https://www.livescience.com/64422-plasma-cooled-with-lasers.html