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Café & Kosmos 21 December 2011
16 de Diciembre de 2011: with Dr Hubertus Thomas, Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics On 21 December 2011 Café & Kosmos goes to the International Space Station! There, scientists perform many different experiments, including those on plasma crystal research, about which Dr. Hubertus Thomas (MPE) will speak this evening, bringing the Café & Kosmos visitors and the ISS closer. A plasma is an ionised gas, which is, after the solid, liquid and gaseous states, a fourth state of matter. Therefore, a plasma crystal is in itself an impossible state of matter! Crystallisation in a plasma is only possible with the addition of "dust". But then the scientists can distinguish separate particles, ie individual "atoms", and dynamically monitor processes such as melting, or investigate directly the motion of lattice defects. Since the particles are about one thousandth of a millimetre in size, gravity plays a major role in the generation of plasma crystals. In the laboratory, ...