What is a plasma?
A plasma is a type of gas in which many or most of the atoms are no longer electrically neutral and have been stripped of one or more of their electrons to become what are called ‘ions’. This usually requires very high temperatures of several thousand degrees. The electrons and ions then become a gas which is capable of emitting many different types of electromagnetic radiation depending on its density and temperature, and whether a magnetic field is also present. All of the universe you see in the sky at night (stars) is dominated by plasmas. Plasma is the most common state of ordinary matter in the universe, out numbering the cool matter ( solid, liquid, gas) that you are familiar with by nearly 100 to 1. Most of the matter in the universe exists at temperature over 2000 K.
