Chinese Scientists Create Coldest Temperature Ever, 280 Billion Times Colder Than Universe

Physicists in China have achieved the coldest temperature ever recorded. The experiment took place aboard Tiangong space station and scientists chilled a cloud of atoms to 9.7 picokelvin (pK), 280 billion times colder than the average temperature of the universe. During the experiment, the module created a Bose-Einstein condensate, often called the "fifth state of matter" - distinct from solids, liquids, gases and plasma - at a temperature that is less than one-tenth of a degree above absolute zero. This experiment could open new ways to use cold atoms in space.

"I congratulate the scientists. I'm very impressed," Ernst Rasel, a quantum physicist at Leibniz University Hannover, was quoted as saying by the journal Science. His team had recorded the previous record low in 2021.

The team that achieved the record-breaking temperature wrote in Science that it could stimulate a new generation of...experiments in quantum simulation and precision measurements in space.

The Bose-Einstein condensate allows atoms to flow without resistance as a quantum wave. It was theorised in 1924 by Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein describing their strange properties.

For the latest experiment, Chinese researchers used the Cold Atom Physics Rack housed inside the Mengtian laboratory module of China's orbiting space station.

The weightless environment of space was crucial because gravity on Earth makes it harder to keep ultracold atoms stable for long periods.

They used 20,000 rubidium atoms and cooled them to create a Bose-Einstein condensate. They were able to observe the cloud of atoms for seven seconds as it expanded freely.

Scientists keep experimenting with low temperatures to understand how fundamental physics changes in extreme conditions. They will open new frontier in the study of mysterious quantum states.