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Chinese Scientists Achieve Record-Cold Temperature on Tiangong Space Station
· Confirmed
In Short: Scientists aboard China's Tiangong space station achieved a record-low temperature of about 10 trillionths of a kelvin in a Bose-Einstein condensate experiment.
Chinese Tiangong Space Station.
China’s Space Station Cooled Atoms Below 10 Picokelvin—How?. Steele Entertainment
Scientists aboard China's Tiangong space station achieved a record-low temperature of about 10 trillionths of a kelvin in a Bose-Einstein condensate experiment, reported today in Science. The experiment, conducted in microgravity conditions, utilized the apparent weightlessness of atoms to reach this unprecedented temperature.
The atoms orbited Earth aboard the Tiangong space station, where they were cooled to about 100 nanokelvins (nK). This achievement marks a significant step toward absolute zero, the lowest temperature theoretically possible.
To achieve this record-low chill, scientists took their work to space. In microgravity, atoms can spread more slowly, enabling scientists to define an effective temperature based on their behavior.
The experiment on the Tiangong space station achieved a temperature of about 10 trillionths of a kelvin, which is barely above absolute zero. This is less than ten-trillionths of a degree above absolute zero, or 9.7 picokelvin, with an uncertainty running from 7.0 to 12.9 picokelvin.
The experiment was carried out in the ultra-cold atom physics rack aboard China's space station, organized by the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, while completed by Beijing University and the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) of the CAS.
Roughly 20,000 rubidium atoms formed the final ultracold cloud. The cloud’s expansion was also tracked far longer than in previous experiments, offering future researchers an extended window to explore physics at such insanely low temperatures.
Temperature usually describes the statistical distribution of energy in a system. At sufficiently low temperatures, multiple atoms occupy the same quantum state, effectively becoming a single wave of matter.
The result concerns a carefully prepared atomic sample, rather than the temperature of the station or its surroundings. The apparatus sits inside the Mengtian laboratory module, launched in October 2022.
What this adds
The experiment's success highlights the potential for further advancements in quantum physics and the manipulation of matter at extremely low temperatures.
While the global average surface air temperature reached 16.96°C in August 2026, marking the highest recorded for any month, the Tiangong space station's achievement stands in stark contrast to the Earth's warming trends.
What's confirmed
- To achieve that record-low chill, scientists took their work to space.
- The atoms orbited Earth aboard China’s Tiangong space station.
- Its equivalent temperature came out at 9.7 picokelvin, with an uncertainty running from 7.0 to 12.9 picokelvin.
- Ground experiments can follow a released cloud for about 0.05 seconds before it falls out of view, the International Space Station manages roughly one second, and the Chinese station now reaches seven, according to the team.
- The previous lowest figure for such a system was 38 picokelvin, and NASA’s Cold Atom Lab on the International Space Station had reached 52.
- The record matters less for the number than for what it buys.
- It was organized by the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization under the CAS, while completed by Beijing University and the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) of the CAS.
What's still developing
- At an atomic level, temperature is tied to motion: Atoms and molecules in the air around us move more slowly when it’s colder.
- To create colder BECs, physicists had to get their atoms away from gravity, which squeezes the particles against the electromagnetic field suspending them, driving their temperature up.
- The UK recorded its hottest summer since records began in 1884, with an average temperature of 16.5°C, exceeding last year's record by 0.4°C.
- The global average surface air temperature reached 16.96°C in August, matching July 2023 as the highest recorded for any month and putting temperatures 1.65°C above the 19th-century pre-industrial average.
- England's driest July on record contributed to drought declarations across half the country, with 54 weather stations breaking daily maximum temperature records.
- NASA-supported scientists have discovered an organism that lives at extreme temperatures previously thought impossible for complex life.
- Last month was the world’s joint hottest month on record, and the hottest August in history, scientists have said.
- Here are four ways that rising temperatures are affecting weather extremes.
- Corresponding authors Xiaoji Zhou, Weibiao Chen and Xuzong Chen helped lead the collaboration, which used Tiangong’s Cold Atom Physics Rack.
- Images taken from two directions revealed how quickly the cloud spread along three axes, providing measurements that suggested the temperature had fallen somewhere between 7.0 and 12.9 picokelvin.
- Yet the quest for ever-colder temperatures and new ways to manipulate this unique form of matter was on.
- As effective as the method is at bringing down the average temperature of a gas, magnetic traps affect a property of the trapped atoms known as spin.