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.