I only know plasma is a form of matter too,But the rest of the information gets really difficult to comprehend.
In: Physics
A plasma is basically a gas where the particles making up the gas aren’t full atoms but ions. This means that the atoms are missing electrons. A gas, by definition, becomes a plasma when certain conditions are met, which would probably lead too far for eli5.
When matter gets hotter, it’s parts move faster and faster, and do not stick as much together.
Ice is solid, when it gets hotter it becomes water, then steam. If you heat it even more, it becomes a plasma, in which the even the atoms themselves start to somewhat dissolve – the electrons start to move away from their nuclei.
You have to at least have a little understanding of particles to understand the basics of states of matter.
In a solid, it’s like all the particles were frozen into whatever configuration they were at the time.
In a liquid, all the particles tend to be tightly packed, giving way to gravity for them all to bunch together.
In a gas, all the particles are just whizzing about everywhere, bumping into things, free to leave if not contained.
In a plasma, you have gas state PLUS you have ionized the particles, that means some will have extra elections, some will have fewer, some will be unaffected, and the you also have a large amount of free elections floating in the mix. This causes the bulk of it to be reactive to electric fields.
Plasma is a gas so superheated that the electrons have broken free and formed an ionic field.
Blood is made of red blood cells and plasma.
Plasma is water salt glucose white blood cells platelets…
Plasma is actually the most common state of matter on a galactic scale. It is present on the surface of the sun, in electrical sparks including lightning, and in a fire that is sufficiently hot.
Often times states of matter are not super well defined and its better to describe by the forces that dominate their behavior. Solids have strong internal forces and will hold their shape and volume unless another solid interacts with them. Liquids can flow past themselves and will take the shape of a container but the internal forces maintain a set volume. In gases there is enough energy that the internal forces cannot maintain a set shape or volume. Plasmas contain free roaming electron which means their behavior is more heavily influenced by external electromagnetic fields as opposed to internal electromagnetic forces.
Follow up question.
If a plasma is created with let’s say a mixture of five gasses, how does the plasma know to separate back into those five gasses once it’s cooled?
Hot solids are liquids. Hot liquids are gases. Hot gases are plasmas. They look like gases, but are magnetized, electrified, and sometimes glow. This happens because the electrons in the gas atoms have gained enough energy to escape the atom’s influence, like a thermal escape velocity.
Probably the most famous instances of plasma are the sun and stars, and lights.
Neon lights use gases like neon, xenon, krypton, etc. that glow when heated up enough.
Incandescent and halogen lights use a small amount of gas to help maintain a vacuum so the bulb doesn’t fry it’s wiring too quickly (a few seconds instead of a few months or years in a vacuum).
CFL’s use gases heated to plasma that glow like neon lights, but in the ultraviolet range we can’t see. Glow in the dark paint called a “phosphor” then turns this into light we can see.
Right so you have solid like ice, liquid like water and gas like steam. As the chemical moves up the levels it gets hotter and more excited, plasma is basically the next level above gas and the chemical start to act weird as the structure of the chemical breaks down and high energy bit fly off it. The air can get superheated during a thunderstorm and the gas in the air gets converted into plasma that we call lightning.
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