A new upgrade to the International Space Station’s (ISS) quantum laboratory is enabling NASA to probe the behavior of atoms further than ever before, the space agency has announced.
Combining the ISS’s newly upgraded “Cold Atom Laboratory” with the near zero-gravity of low Earth orbit, scientists are attempting to understand the properties of so-called “ultracold” atoms in an environment impossible to replicate on Earth. The aim of the mission is to study how clouds of atoms behave at temperatures close to absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius) — the coldest possible temperature in the universe, where atoms lose all their energy of motion.
“At the coldest temperatures, matter behaves drastically different from anything we have experienced,” Jason Williams, project scientist for the Cold Atom Lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built the facility, said in a statement. “The wavelike nature of matter dominates, and ultracold matter can behave in ways that are not only unexpected, but that also enable extremely precise measurements of time, gravity, and motion. The lab has lots of tools — especially with this latest upgrade — to let us probe the nature of the universe.”
Rule-breaking particles
Atoms and their subatomic particles are quantum mechanical objects whose behavior is fundamentally different from that of the large-scale world. For example, the laws of quantum mechanics predict that particles can be in more than one place at the same time (quantum superposition); can be mysteriously linked with each other over great distances (quantum entanglement); and move through spacetime as waves as well as moving like fixed, solid objects.
But observing these behaviors is notoriously difficult. Firstly, atoms are so tiny that if an atom were the size of a golf ball, then a human teeing one off would stand roughly as tall as the distance from Earth to the moon. Secondly, it’s impossible to isolate measurements of these behaviors for atoms in “normal” environments (like on Earth), as the desired quantum behavior is disturbed by energy from heat and gravity.
To overcome these challenges, the ISS’s Cold Atom Laboratory — which is the size of a mini-fridge — uses lasers to cool gases of rubidium and potassium to just above absolute zero. At these temperatures, atoms form a state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, in which many atoms behave like a single wave of quantum matter.
Not only does this setup allow scientists to observe quantum behaviors on a much larger scale than that of single atoms, but the reduced gravity enables the condensate matter waves to expand and evolve undisturbed for much longer periods than would be possible on Earth.
Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.
This is the fourth major upgrade to NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory since it arrived aboard the ISS in 2018. According to NASA, the significant improvements in this most recent upgrade include a redesigned magnetic trap to contain the cloud of atoms, improved atom sources, and better measurement capabilities.
Scientists launched these upgrades to the ISS in April 2026, and they have since been installed, switched on, and started making state-of-the-art measurements. As well as enabling novel tests of fundamental physics, measurements of these effects are critical in demonstrating future, space-based, highly precise quantum technologies related to positioning, navigation, timing, and gravity sensing. These technologies could one day enable astronauts to navigate on the moon without GPS and produce high-precision maps of Earth’s gravity.
“In the previous century, there was a quantum revolution that led to lasers, cellphones, and MRIs for medical imaging,” Ethan Elliott, deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said in the statement. “We’re performing Quantum 2.0 – direct manipulation of large quantum states – and we hope for similar gains in quantum technology by advancing this science in orbit.”
