Scientists Reach a Record Temperature: 280 Billion Times Colder Than The Universe

Key Points:

• Physicists aboard China's Tiangong space station have achieved a record equivalent temperature of 9.7 picokelvins, the lowest ever measured, far surpassing previous records in the quest to approach absolute zero.
• The experiment involved cooling a cloud of rubidium-87 atoms using laser and evaporative cooling techniques in a microgravity environment, with a magnetic field gradient simulating gravity to aid the process.
• This ultracold state allowed the creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, where atoms behave collectively as a single quantum entity, enabling the study of quantum phenomena on a macroscopic scale.
• The ultracold atoms dispersed extremely slowly, allowing precise measurements and opening possibilities for advances in quantum simulation, precision metrology, and fundamental physics tests such as the equivalence principle.
• Conducting such experiments in space overcomes Earth-based limitations like gravity, enabling longer observation times and more sensitive instruments for probing exotic states of matter and fundamental laws of the Universe.