Some of the Coldest Matter Ever Made Is in Orbit

You’d think the coldest spot in the universe would be some distant void between galaxies, but no—some of the coldest matter ever made came from a lab. In 2018, scientists at NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, aboard the International Space Station, cooled atoms to 100 nanokelvin, one ten-millionth of a degree above absolute zero. That’s colder than the Boomerang Nebula, the coldest known natural place in space. Why do this? At such low temperatures, atoms slow down so much they start behaving like waves instead of particles. This helps physicists study quantum mechanics in ways that would be impossible anywhere else.