The Stargate (chappa’ai) is a large circular ring about 20 metres in diameter. Made of naquadah, the stargate has a free spinning inner ring engraved with 39 glyphs. The inner ring must be turned to seven symbols in a valid order to open a stable wormhole between two gates.
 Earth's Stargate is controlled by a supercomputer that starts the dialing sequence, and sends a neutrino energy burst to open the stargate. Most other stargates have a device called a "Dial Home Device" (DHD) that allows sequence entry and handles sending the appropriate power charge to the gate.
Anything traveling through the Stargate is broken down into molecules, then compressed and remade at the destination, leaving them covered with a fine layer of ice. The process leaves people partially disoriented, as the sense of balance is temporarily wiped out. Some side affects of using the Stargate include: mild dizziness to active nausea and sometimes unconsciousness.
The stargate can become a time machine when the wormhole to be established gets caught near a solar flare by a nearby star. This slingshots the wormhole back to the  stargate, sending the object through time. Precise calculations of solar flares can send it back through time or it will remain stranded there forever.