Lowest temperature recorded on Earth
The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth is −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F; 184.0 K) at the then-Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 1983 by ground measurements.[1]
On 10 August 2010, satellite observations showed a surface temperature of −92 °C (−134 °F; 181 K) at 81°48′S 59°18′E / 81.8°S 59.3°E, along a ridge between
Historical progression
On 21 January 1838, a Russian merchant named Neverov recorded a temperature of −60 °C (−76 °F; 213 K) in Yakutsk.[6] On 15 January 1885, H. Wild reported that a temperature of −68 °C (−90 °F; 205 K) was measured in Verkhoyansk.[6] A later measurement at the same place in February 1892 was reported as −69.8 °C (−93.6 °F; 203.3 K). Soviet researchers later announced a recording of −67.7 °C (−89.9 °F; 205.5 K) in February 1933 at Oymyakon, about 650 km (400 mi) to the south-east of Verkhoyansk; this measurement was reported by Soviet texts through the 1940s as a record low, with the previous measurement from Verkhoyansk retroactively adjusted to −67.6 °C (−89.7 °F; 205.6 K).[7]
The next reliable measurement was made during the 1957 season at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, yielding −73.6 °C (−100.5 °F; 199.6 K) on 11 May and −74.5 °C (−102.1 °F; 198.7 K) on 17 September.[6] The next world record low temperature was a reading of −88.3 °C (−126.9 °F; 184.8 K), measured at the Soviet Vostok Station in 1968, on the Antarctic Plateau. Vostok again broke its own record with a reading of −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F; 184.0 K) on 21 July 1983.[8] This remains the record for a directly recorded temperature.
Laboratory cooling
Early experiments
In 1904 Dutch scientist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes created a special lab in Leiden in the Netherlands with the aim of producing liquid helium. In 1908 he managed to lower the temperature to less than −269 °C (−452.2 F, 4 K), which is four degrees above absolute zero. Only in this exceptionally cold state will helium liquefy, the boiling point of helium being at −268.94 °C (−452.092 F). Kamerlingh Onnes received a Nobel Prize for his achievement.[9]
Onnes' method relied upon depressurising the subject gases, causing them to cool by
where U = internal energy, Q = heat added to the system, W = work done by the system.
Consider a gas in a box of set volume. If the pressure in the box is higher than atmospheric pressure, then upon opening the gas will do work on the surrounding atmosphere to expand. As this expansion is adiabatic and the gas has done work
Now as the internal energy has decreased, so has the temperature.[citation needed]
Modern experiments
As of November 2000,
The Low Temperature Laboratory recorded a record low temperature of 100 pK, or 1.0 × 10−10 K in 1999.[11]
The current apparatus for achieving low temperatures has two stages. The first utilizes a
Extremely low temperatures are useful for observation of
See also
- Absolute zero
- Dilution refrigerator
- Highest temperature recorded on Earth
- List of weather records
- Magnetic refrigeration
- Orders of magnitude (temperature)
- Timeline of low-temperature technology
- Pole of Cold
References
- .
- ^ "NASA-USGS Landsat 8 Satellite Pinpoints Coldest Spots on Earth". NASA. 9 December 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
- ^ "Coldest spot on Earth identified by satellite". BBC. 9 December 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
- ^ "World Record Cold in Antarctica?". USA Today. 9 December 2013. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
- hdl:1874/367883.
- ^ a b c Nina Stepanova (30 January 1958). "On the lowest temperatures on Earth" (PDF). NOAA. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
- S2CID 128185172.
- ^ "World: Lowest Temperature". World Meteorological Organization. Archived from the original on 16 June 2010. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
- ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1913".
- ^ The experimental methods and results are presented in detail in Tauno A. Knuuttila’s D.Sc. thesis which can be accessed from Aaltodoc. The university’s press release on its achievement is here
- ^ a b "World record in low temperatures". Archived from the original on 18 June 2009. Retrieved 13 February 2019.