• Question: what is the coldest thing in the universe?

    Asked by ChrismdTGS to Steven on 15 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Blobfish, 568frcc35, Shaun, 859frcc45.
    • Photo: Steven Thomson

      Steven Thomson answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Great question! It turns out that there is actually a coldest possible temperature of -273C. Nowhere natural in the universe is this cold – deep space has a temperature of -270C, for example.

      The only places we can get that cold – to within a millionth of a degree of ‘absolute zero’, as we call it – is in our labs at universities using a technique called laser cooling. So the labs in universities like St Andrews, Strathclyde, Oxford and Cambridge (to name just a few!) are some of the coldest places in the entire universe!

Comments