PK-3 Plus (ISS experiment)

The Plasmakristall-3 Plus (PK-3 Plus) laboratory was a joint Russian-German laboratory for the investigation of dusty/complex plasmas on board the International Space Station (ISS), with the principal investigators at the German Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and the Russian Institute for High Energy Densities.

The data from the cameras are recorded on hard drives that are physically brought back to Earth via Soyuz capsules for analysis.

The microparticles acquire high negative charges by collecting electrons from the surrounding plasma.

Depending on the experimental settings like the gas pressure, the system made up of the microparticles forms various phases - solid, liquid or gaseous.

The PK-3 Plus experiment allows investigating a large variety of topics, for instance: the crystal structure,[3] fluid-solid phase transitions,[4] electrorheological fluids,[5] wave propagation,[6] the heartbeat instability,[7] Mach cone formation[8] and the speed of sound,[9] and lane formation[10][11]