Space temperature: Is space really at -272 ° C?

 

Outer space is practically empty, so the concept of temperature is a bit difficult to understand, and sometimes it tends to be confusing. Outside the influence of radiation from the Sun and any star, the minimum temperature that a body can register is --- 270 ° C (2.72 ° K), which would be the minimum temperature of the Universe, that is, what colder than a body or gas can be in space. Absolute zero, at -273 ° C (0 ° K), ceases all activity of matter, the atoms stop their movement and do not give off energy, but quantum mechanics says that this absolute zero must have a residual energy, the energy zero point, so as not to violate the uncertainty principle ofHeisenberg.Outside the influence of radiation from the Sun and any star, the minimum temperature that a body can register is --- 270 ° C (2.72 ° K), which would be the minimum temperature of the Universe, that is, what colder than a body or gas can be in space. Why is absolute zero not reached? It is because the residual heat in the form of microwaves resulting from the Big Bang is in the entire Universe that prevents the temperature from dropping the temperature to -3 ° K (-273 ° C). On the contrary, the maximum achievable temperature in the Universe is 141 quintillion degrees Celsius, also called Planck temperature, the atoms of matter move so fast that it is impossible to know what happens to them. It is believed to be the temperature that the space-time singularity (Big Bang) reached when expanding. The maximum temperature reached so far is 5 million degrees Celsius at CER, and a new record is expected to be reached with the first plasma reactor at 73 million degrees Celsius. In short, the universe does not have a fixed temperature, everything depends on the distance to energy sources.

By: Alejandro Sebastián Von Heguer, National University of Lomas de Zamora, Buenos Aires .