Chinese Team Chills Atoms Colder Than Earth Record
Researchers aboard the Tiangong space station cooled rubidium atoms to the lowest temperature ever measured.
Updated on Nov. 5, 2026 in Physics
Chinese researchers from Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences chilled rubidium atoms aboard the Tiangong space station to less than 10 trillionths of a degree above absolute zero. The results were published in the journal Science.
Why it matters
The result is about four times colder than the previous best, set in a German drop tower, and it shows that ultracold atoms can be studied in orbit. Researchers see such atoms as a route to highly sensitive gravity sensors and tests of physical theory.
The atoms were held together for seven seconds, compared with two seconds in the German drop tower and about one second on Nasa's Cold Atom Lab, and about 2 million rubidium atoms were cooled in the initial laser trap. The team has not yet established how long the cloud can be sustained beyond that window or what limits its lifetime.
The players
Peking University
A leading Chinese research university whose physicists co-led the experiment aboard the Tiangong space station.
Chinese Academy of Sciences
China's national academy of sciences, which co-led the orbital cold-atom research with Peking University.
The details
The team cooled about 2 million rubidium atoms in a tight laser trap until they formed a Bose-Einstein condensate, then shifted the cloud into a wider trap and dimmed the light so the particles slowed almost to a standstill. Unlike the German and Nasa experiments, which rely on magnets, the Chinese set-up holds the atoms with lasers alone.
Timeline
Results were published in Science on Thursday, November 5, 2026.
The Big Picture
The result surpasses the German drop tower record set at Leibniz University Hannover and extends cold-atom physics into orbit, where microgravity allows atoms to be observed longer than on Earth. It follows Nasa's Cold Atom Lab on the International Space Station, which holds atoms for about one second.
Ultracold atoms could eventually underpin highly sensitive gravity sensors and precision instruments. Researchers hope to test a gravity sensor on a new instrument bound for the International Space Station soon.
The takeaway
Orbital laboratories may become a practical testbed for quantum physics, since microgravity lets fragile atomic clouds persist far longer than they can on Earth.
Further reading
Explore more on Physics for the broader research context behind ultracold atom experiments.
