From atoms to planets, the longest-running Space Station experiment

[Waspie_Dwarf]

From atoms to planets, the longest-running Space Station experiment

Quote

As Europe celebrates 20 years of ESA astronauts on the International Space Station, a Russian-European experiment has been running quietly in the weightless research centre for just as long: the Plasma Kristall (PK) suite of investigations into fundamental science.

Plasma Kristall takes a plasma and injects fine dust particles in weightlessness, turning the dust into highly charged particles that interact with each other, bouncing off each other as their charge causes the particles to attract or repel. Under the right conditions, the dust particles can arrange themselves over time to form organised structures, or plasma crystals.

  Read More: ESA