Chinese space station experiment cools atoms to record ten picokelvins

Researchers aboard China's Tiangong space station cooled a collection of atoms to approximately 10 picokelvins, Science News reported. That temperature corresponds to 10 trillionths of a kelvin above absolute zero, which is defined as minus 273.15 degrees Celsius. The research team reported the finding in the journal Science on November 5, 2026. [1]

The experiment achieved the record low chill by taking advantage of the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit, according to Science News. Mitigating the effects of gravity allowed the cloud of atoms to reach lower thermal energy levels than achieved in terrestrial laboratories. The supercooled atoms formed a Bose-Einstein condensate, a dense quantum state of matter in which macroscopic quantum phenomena become observable. [1]

The Tiangong space station, along with the International Space Station, is one of two currently operational space stations orbiting Earth. The International Space Station serves as an orbital research station for scientific experiments in microgravity. As FTMQ Science reported earlier, astronauts aboard orbital stations frequently utilize low Earth orbit to conduct diverse scientific studies, ranging from Earth observation to fundamental physical experiments. [2][4]