Tiangong experiment reports atoms at 9.7 picokelvin

What happened?

1. A rubidium atom cloud aboard China's Tiangong space station reached an equivalent temperature of 9.7 picokelvin, the reports state
2. About 20,000 rubidium atoms were tracked in three dimensions for roughly seven seconds after release from a laser trap
3. The reported figure is about a quarter of the previous record of 38 picokelvin, set in a ground-based drop tower with two seconds of observation
4. The team used laser cooling and evaporative cooling inside an optical dipole trap, aided by a magnetic-field gradient, to form a Bose–Einstein condensate
5. The cloud was moved into a wider optical trap and the confinement was gradually loosened before release to reduce the energy driving its expansion

Researchers aboard China's Tiangong space station reported an equivalent temperature of 9.7 picokelvin for a cloud of about 20,000 rubidium atoms, according to the South China Morning Post and other outlets. The team tracked the cloud in three dimensions for roughly seven seconds after release from a laser trap, and the reports describe the figure as about a quarter of the previous record of 38 picokelvin set in a ground-based drop tower.

A machine summary written from the reports listed below; read them for the full account. How summaries are made and what is checked.