<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><div class=""><section id="ember960" class="opened collapsible ember-view" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-height: none; overflow-y: hidden;"><div class="text" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="type-image dnd-atom-wrapper context-full_width" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; display: table; margin: 0px auto 2em;"><div class="dnd-drop-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/cal_main.jpg" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(42, 100, 150); outline: 0px; background-position: 0px 0px;" class=""></a></div><div class="dnd-legend-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="caption" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Artist's concept of an atom chip for use by NASA's Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) aboard the International Space Station. CAL will use lasers to cool atoms to ultracold temperatures.</div><div class="credits" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">Credits: NASA</div><div class="link" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: inherit; background-attachment: inherit; background-origin: inherit; background-clip: inherit; background-size: inherit; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA17794" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(66, 139, 202); background-position: 0px 0px;" class="">Full image and caption</a></div></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; -webkit-font-smoothing: inherit; line-height: 1.4em;" class=""><font size="4" class=""><font face="Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" class="">This summer, an ice chest-sized box will fly to the International Space Station, where it will create the coolest spot in the universe. I</font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">nside that box, lasers, a vacuum chamber and an electromagnetic "knife" will be used to cancel out the energy of gas particles, slowing them until they're almost motionless. This suite of instruments is called the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL), and was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. CAL is in the final stages of assembly at JPL, ahead of a ride to space this August on SpaceX CRS-12. </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">Its instruments are designed to freeze gas atoms to a mere billionth of a degree above absolute zero. That's more than 100 million times colder than the depths of space. </span><font face="Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" class="">"Studying these hyper-cold atoms could reshape our understanding of matter and the fundamental nature of gravity," said CAL Project Scientist Robert Thompson of JPL. "The experiments we'll do with the Cold Atom Lab will give us insight into gravity and dark energy -- some of the most pervasive forces in the universe.” </font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">When atoms are cooled to extreme temperatures, as they will be inside of CAL, they can form a distinct state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. In this state, familiar rules of physics recede and quantum physics begins to take over. Matter can be observed behaving less like particles and more like waves. Rows of atoms move in concert with one another as if they were riding a moving fabric. These mysterious waveforms have never been seen at temperatures as low as what CAL will achieve. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">NASA has never before created or observed Bose-Einstein condensates in space. On Earth, the pull of gravity causes atoms to continually settle towards the ground, meaning they're typically only observable for fractions of a second. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">But on the International Space Station, ultra-cold atoms can hold their wave-like forms longer while in freefall. That offers scientists a longer window to understand physics at its most basic level. Thompson estimated that CAL will allow Bose-Einstein condensates to be observable for up to five to 10 seconds; future development of the technologies used on CAL could allow them to last for hundreds of seconds. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">Bose-Einstein condensates are a "superfluid" -- a kind of fluid with zero viscosity, where atoms move without friction as if they were all one, solid substance. </span><font face="Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" class="">"If you had superfluid water and spun it around in a glass, it would spin forever," said Anita Sengupta of JPL, Cold Atom Lab project manager. "There's no viscosity to slow it down and dissipate the kinetic energy. If we can better understand the physics of superfluids, we can possibly learn to use those for more efficient transfer of energy.” </font><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">Five scientific teams plan to conduct experiments using the Cold Atom Lab. Among them is Eric Cornell of the University of Colorado, Boulder and the National Institute for Standards and Technology. Cornell is one of the Nobel Prize winners who first created Bose-Einstein condensates in a lab setting in 1995. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">The results of these experiments could potentially lead to a number of improved technologies, including sensors, quantum computers and atomic clocks used in spacecraft navigation. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">Especially exciting are applications related to dark energy detection, said Kamal Oudrhiri of JPL, the CAL deputy project manager. He noted that current models of cosmology divide the universe into roughly 27 percent dark matter, 68 percent dark energy and about 5 percent ordinary matter. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">"This means that even with all of our current technologies, we are still blind to 95 percent of the universe," Oudrhiri said. "Like a new lens in Galileo's first telescope, the ultra-sensitive cold atoms in the Cold Atom Lab have the potential to unlock many mysteries beyond the frontiers of known physics." </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">The Cold Atom Lab is currently undergoing a testing phase that will prepare it prior to delivery to Cape Canaveral, Florida. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">"The tests we do over the next months on the ground are critical to ensure we can operate and tune it remotely while it's in space, and ultimately learn from this rich atomic physics system for years to come," said Dave Aveline, the test-bed lead at JPL. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">JPL is developing the Cold Atom Laboratory, sponsored by the International Space Station Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">The Space Life and Physical Sciences Division of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington manages the Fundamental Physics Program. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">Caltech manages JPL for NASA. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" class="">For more information about the Cold Atom Lab, visit: </span><a href="http://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(66, 139, 202); text-decoration: none; background-position: 0px 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;" class="">http://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/</span></a></font></p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><font size="4" class=""><b class="">This gives you an idea of what the Soyuz looks like after returning from the ISS with THREE astronauts and cargo….cramped quarters….</b></font></div><div class=""><br class=""><table width="875" style="font-family: Calibri; width: 525pt; margin-left: 5.4pt;" class=""><colgroup class=""><col width="875" style="width: 525pt;" class=""></colgroup><tbody class=""><tr class=""><td class=""><a href="http://links.govdelivery.com:80/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTQwMzExLjI5OTIyOTQxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE0MDMxMS4yOTkyMjk0MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE2ODQyOTU0JmVtYWlsaWQ9Z2VvcmdlLmdhYnJpZWxsZS0xQGtzYy5uYXNhLmdvdiZ1c2VyaWQ9Z2VvcmdlLmdhYnJpZWxsZS0xQGtzYy5uYXNhLmdvdiZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&100&&&http://www.nasa.gov/content/unpacking-cargo-from-expedition-38-soyuz-landing" class=""><font color="blue" class=""><b class=""><u class="">Unpacking Cargo from Expedition 38 Soyuz Landing</u></b></font></a></td></tr><tr class=""><td class=""></td></tr><tr class=""><td class=""><img src="http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/946xvariable_height/public/201403110012hq.jpg?itok=LZMwZEYA" class=""></td></tr><tr class=""><td class="">Engineers document cargo as it is unloaded from the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft after it landed with Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov of the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, and Flight Engineers: Mike Hopkins of NASA, and, Sergey Ryazanskiy of Roscosmos, near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Tuesday, March 11, 2014. Hopkins, Kotov and Ryazanskiy returned to Earth after five and a half months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 37 and 38 crews. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px;" class=""> </div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></section></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><center style="font-family: -webkit-standard; background-color: rgb(244, 244, 255);" class=""><h1 class=""><font size="5" class="">Astronomy Picture of the Day</font></h1><p class=""><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1703/AuroraIceland_Brynjarsson_8086.jpg" class=""></a></p></center></div></body></html>