And they’re putting it aboard the International Space Station, where it will be generated inside an “atomic refrigerator.”
The current holder of the title of coldest spot in the universe is the Boomerang Nebula, a 5,000-light year distant nebula shaped just like it sounds, coming in at a freezing -272°Celsius. NASA’s Cold Atom Lab will go even further, taking the temperatures down to just 1/10 billionth of a degree above absolute zero.
It’s expected to launch in 2016. And, though the results are still some years away, researchers say that it could eventually lead to the development of quantum sensors and atomic lasers.
