PLASMA IS A STATE OF MATTER, just like gas, liquid and solid. It is far less common with regards to life on Earth yet extremely common in the Universe as a whole.
You may well be familiar with the 3 aforementioned states of matter. The easy way to remember where PLASMA lies with regards to physical change in matter is this:
The hotter something becomes, the less structured the atoms are that comprise the substance.
Here are the states:
SOLID: TIGHTLY PACKED ATOMS
LIQUID: LOOSELY PACKED ATOMS
GAS: FREE-FLOATING ATOMS
PLASMA: ELECTRONS ARE RIPPED FROM THE ATOMIC NUCLEUS, PARTICLES WHIZZING ALL OVER THE PLACE - NO ORDER AT ALL.
What this shows is the more ENERGY something is given/ or has the less order there is because the particle is travelling much much faster.
Our Sun is in the PLASMA STATE - the Suns core has a temperature of a whopping 15,000,000 degrees C!
It is due to the PLASMA STATE that NUCLEAR FUSION can occur though because we have these PROTONS whizzing about all over the place and eventually because they are travelling at such a speed, they smash into each other and NUCLEAR FUSION has begun.
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