Astronomy Today@astronomytodayPhysicists aboard China's Tiangong space station have measured an equivalent temperature of 9.7 picokelvins, which the team says is the lowest yet recorded. That is about 280 billion times colder than the average background temperature of space.
They cooled about 20,000 rubidium atoms into a Bose-Einstein condensate, using a magnetic field gradient to stand in for gravity's pull. The cloud spread so slowly that it could still be picked up seven seconds after release.
The previous record, 38 picokelvins, was set in a German drop tower in 2021.
