Originally Posted by JourdanWithaU

So... Plasma is the next state past gas?

What kinda of plasma have humans been able to generate?

Originally Posted by rupees88

Originally Posted by Rev. Rob Large

Phases of material are descriptions of the of a material’s location in pressure-temperature space (think of a graph of pressure-temperature) wherein all physical properties are the same for that given region. Generally, as temperature increases, materials transition in phase from solid to liquid to gas as more and more energy, in this case thermal energy, is added. If you remove the energy from a system or material, the individual “particles” slow down until they eventual stop moving. At an atomic scale, the individual atoms or molecules align and bind to create a solid. As more energy is introduced to the system, what was previously a nice orderly lattice becomes fluidic as the particles start moving around. Our material is now a liquid. As even more energy in introduced, the individual particles move around faster and faster. The material still exhibits many of the same characteristics as the liquid only more energetic. Our material is now in a gaseous state. If we add even more energy, we start to then strip electrons off the atoms that compose our material and we now have a “soup” of highly-energetic charged particles (positively- AND negatively-charged particles since our atoms have deconstructed into nucleons and electrons)—plasma.
Previously, the particles in our material were net-neutral (equal part positive and negative charges) and were largely unaffected by electromagnetic forces. Now, since all we have are charged particles, plasma is very susceptible to electromagnetic forces. This is very apparent in the upper layers of the Sun where see large bands of plasma looping up and around as they get caught up in electromagnetic field lines.
While very uncommon on Earth, close to all (approximately 99%) of the observable universe is plasma. This is due to the fact that just about all of what we see in the universe beyond our planet is light from stars which is emitted from the plasma in the upper layers of our stellar neighbors.

Originally Posted by stupidchicken03

Originally Posted by JourdanWithaU

So... Plasma is the next state past gas?

What kinda of plasma have humans been able to generate?

Originally Posted by rupees88

Is there a 'baseline' of thermal energy that needs to be input in order to reach a 'Plasmatic' state, or does that depend on the object that is being manipulated?

Originally Posted by JourdanWithaU

Good question. I assumed that it would vary just like freezing points and boiling points do for various things. But if the plasma point is the same across the board... HMMMM...