South Pole experiments require extremely cold temperatures to
operate Posted August 26, 2011 Of all the places in the world,
one would not think of the South Pole as the home of a state-of-
the-art cryogenic facility. After all, this is one of the
coldest places on the planet. Although too cold to support life,
even the South Pole is not cold enough to accommodate the
advanced astrophysical research that is done here. Cryogenics,
from the Greek cryo for cold, is the science of producing,
storing, and delivering very cold temperatures. The basis of
cryogenics is the liquefaction of gases. At sea level, water
molecules liquefy at a temperature of 100 degrees Celsius. Above
that temperature, water exists as a gas, and below that
temperature, it exists as a liquid. Warm up water on a stove
and, when it reaches a temperature of 100C, it will boil off and
turn into a gas. The same thing is true for a variety of other
substances. Two of them in particular have boiling points so low
that they find applications as cryo