Driftspace
Scientists working aboard China's Tiangong space station have cooled a small clo
Scientists working aboard China's Tiangong space station have cooled a small cloud of rubidium atoms to approximately 9.7 picokelvin — roughly ten trillionths of a degree above absolute zero — setting a new record for the lowest temperature ever measured anywhere. Research published in the journal Science this week puts the result at around four times colder than the previous benchmark, reached in a German drop-tower experiment, and also below what NASA's Cold Atom Lab has achieved on the International Space Station. The microgravity environment of an orbiting station allows the atom cloud to remain suspended long enough for deeper cooling than is currently possible on Earth. Researchers say the technology could eventually lead to ultra-precise sensors for mapping underground resources, monitoring environmental change, or probing fundamental questions in physics. Whether practical applications emerge soon or this remains exploratory science for years to come is a live question. What possibilities excite you most about what pushing matter toward absolute zero in space might one day unlock?