Science, Space and Technology News 2024
NASA’s Cold Atom Lab leverages quantum technology to enhance space science, exploring gravitational variations, dark matter, and dark energy, and testing general relativity in a microgravity environment.. Credit: NASAuses quantum technology for advanced space science, offering new insights into gravitational fields, dark matter, and dark energy, and testing aspects of general relativity in microgravity.
Physicists have been eager to apply atom interferometry in space because the microgravity there allows longer measurement times and greater instrument sensitivity, but the exquisitely sensitive equipment has been considered too fragile to function for extended periods without hands-on assistance. The Cold Atom Lab, which is operated remotely from Earth, has now shown it’s possible.
Precise measurements of gravity could also offer insights into the nature of dark matter and dark energy, two major cosmological mysteries. Dark matter is an invisible substance five times more common in the universe than the “regular” matter that composes planets, stars, and everything else we can see. Dark energy is the name given to the unknown driver of the universe’s accelerating expansion.
Quantum properties include sometimes acting like solid particles and sometimes like waves. Scientists don’t know how these building blocks of all matter can transition between such different physical behaviors, but they’re using quantum technology like what’s available on the Cold Atom Lab to seek answers.
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