The ISS astronauts can now study matter at (almost) absolute zero

NASA researchers are creating a spot colder than the vacuum of space inside the International Space Station. Last May, a new atomic refrigerator called the Cold Atom Lab (CAL) was installed on the International Space Station. It can refrigerate matter to one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero, just above the point where all the thermal activity of atoms theoretically stops. It will produce clouds of ultra-cold atoms to carry out quantum physics experiments in microgravity.