Is plasma the technology of the future? Usually when we hear about plasma it is being talked about in a way where it would be used as some sort of shield for a spacecraft which would be able to stop radiation from entering said craft. In order to do this several scientists are working on a way to create a cold plasma. Plasma is an ionized gas of positive ions and free electrons which has no overall electric charge. It can be found at low pressures in the upper atmosphere or very high temperatures such as those which exist in nuclear reactors. Plasma also exists around the sun. Supposedly there are five states of matter. I say supposedly, because we could find out in the future there are more. These states are solids, liquids, gases, plasma and Bose-Einstein condensates. What people don’t realize is there are a lot of uses for plasma, but the future may hold many more.

One of the things which really intrigued me was one use for plasma I had never given a thought to. Some experts are saying airplanes in the future may have no solid wings, they might ride on wings of plasma. Could it be we are further ahead in plasma research than we know about? With all the secret projects that are being worked on around the world it certainly wouldn’t surprise me, would it surprise you? Plasma is being used in high-tech industries right now. Industries are using it for making microelectronic and electronic devices. Semiconductors are being created using plasma. Different types of films are made using plasma. When I say films I am talking about a coating not a Hollywood production. Plasma has found a use in extracting metals from rocks. It seems even uses we know about are quite eclectic. Will plasma be the next big thing?

A breakthrough has been made using plasma. For the first time in the history of mankind a device has been created which can launch a ring of plasma 2 feet. This may not sound like much to the uninitiated, but it was an incredible feat and many believe it’s going to lead to a new way to generate energy and also a new way to store it. There is also something called plasma gasification. It’s a process that turns organic matter into a synthetic gas. Waste is not only turned into synthetic gas using this process it is also turned into slag. Companies are using this method as a form of waste treatment and it is being tested for the gasification of not only biomass, but of solid hydrocarbons such as coal, oil shale and oil sands. A plasma torch is sometimes used to cut through electrically conductive materials. It uses a jet of hot plasma and can cut through different metals such as steel, brass, copper and others. Cutting with plasma is rather a speedy process and that is what makes it so attractive.

There is plenty of plasma in the universe and scientists have made an incredible prediction. They claim that 99.999% of all observable matter in the universe is in a plasma state. When we think of all the stars and planets, galaxies and other things that exist out there, it is hard to believe there could be so much plasma. I guess we have to realize many of the planets we will find will be like the earth as far as what is surrounding them. The earth is sitting in a sea of complex interacting electric and magnetic fields, electric currents and charge particles which is known as the magnetosphere. This is what protects us from the solar wind which sprays particles at the earth. The solar wind is actually a plasma, it is made up of negatively charged electrons and ions. If every star in the universe is putting out a solar wind you can see how there can be a lot of plasma out there.

Plasma weapons have appeared in quite a few science fiction stories. The way they were supposed to work was usually by putting out a hot stream of plasma which destroys skin, tissue and bone. As with most things in science fiction it is only a matter of time before plasma weapons are created and there may have been one already used by the U.S. Army in Iraq. I spoken about this weapon a few times before, but since we are on the subject of plasma I am going to mention it again. It is a weapon which was mounted on a tank and when it was fired at a bus it melted the bus. When fired at enemy soldiers it killed them instantly and shrunk their bodies down to the size of newborn babies. There is no proof this was a plasma weapon, but when described by an Iraqi soldier he said it was as if the tank had shot a bolt of lightning at its targets. It certainly sounds as if we do have a plasma weapon. If we do it is a rather large one since it is mounted on a tank and the chances of a handheld one being invented still might be slim due to the need of a powerful power source.

I can’t be sure, because there is a lot of false videos on YouTube, but there is a video which purports to be a plasma weapon being test fired. For what it’s worth I am going to give you the address of the short video and you can paste it into your web browser’s address area. Sorry Truth Facts doesn’t use outside links. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKMqODC-1J4

There are probably millions of more uses for plasma than we have any idea of right now. Some scientists believe plasma will change our lives. While they believe this they are not quite sure exactly how this will happen. We are going to need to develop several types of plasma, not just the usual hot plasma which exists around stars. Some doctors think plasma could be used to cure certain diseases. They are starting to believe we may be able to cure diseases electronically. One of the things which is being looked at is the use of plasma in the curing of cancer. Plasma can be used to treat the entire body at once. Researchers think they might be able to use a stream of cold plasma to deactivate viruses. This innovation they think would stop the viruses from reproducing. It is said an experiment was conducted at the Max-Planck Institute and they found when someone was exposed to cold plasma for 242 seconds, almost all the viruses became inactive. There was still some replication, but it was just one in 1 million. Perhaps a longer exposure might have eliminated even the small amount of viruses which were left active.