Have you ever seen static electricity cause a spark of light?
All of those things, and many others,
in fact 99.9% of the universe, are made of plasma.
drastically different from the more familiar forms.
Ice, a solid, melts to become water, a liquid,
which, when heated, vaporizes into steam, a gas.
Continued heating of the steam at a high enough temperature
causes the water molecules in it to separate
into freely roaming hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
With a little more heat, the ionization process occurs
and the negatively charged electrons escape the atoms,
leaving behind positively charged ions.
This mixture of freely roaming negative and positive charges is plasma,
and at a high enough temperature, any gas can be made into one.
These freely moving charged particles behave very differently
from the particles in other types of matter.
When a doorknob, a solid, has static electricity on it,
it doesn't look or behave any differently.
And with the exception of a compass or other magnetic object,
we rarely see matter respond to a magnetic field.
But put a plasma in an electric field or magnetic field,
and you'll get a very different reaction.
electric fields accelerate them,
and magnetic fields steer them in circular orbits.
And when the particles within plasma collide,
or accelerated by electricity or magnetism,
which is what we see when we look at plasmas
Plasmas aren't just beautiful, celestial phenomena, though.
Imagine a tiny cube made of normal gas with a very high voltage across it.
pushes some of the electrons off the atoms and accelerates them to high speeds
causing the ionization of other atoms.
Imbedded impurities in the tiny cube of gas
cause it to gain and release a precise amount of energy
in the form of ultraviolet radiation.
a fluorescent material glows with a specific color
when ultraviolet light at just the right intensity reaches it.
Now, make a rectangle out of a million of these tiny cubes,
each separately controlled by sophisticated electronics.
You may be looking at one now.
Plasmas also have implications for health care.
Plasma chemists create highly specific plasmas
that can destroy or alter targeted chemicals,
thereby killing pathogenic organisms on food or hospital surfaces.
in forms that are both spectacular and practical.
And in the future, plasma could be used
to permanently rid landfills of their waste,
efficiently remove toxins from our air and water,