Russia said on Wednesday that its forces had destroyed five Ukrainian unmanned boats in the Black Sea and taken control of two settlements in Ukraine's Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions, while Ukraine reported long-range strikes against an oil refinery and an important military-industrial facility in Russia.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said in its latest report that over the past 24 hours, its troops had struck Ukrainian fuel and energy facilities, transport infrastructure, a production workshop and storage site for engines of Ukrainian "Neptune" cruise missiles, as well as temporary deployment points of Ukrainian armed forces and foreign mercenaries in 148 areas.
Meanwhile, Russian air defense systems shot down seven guided aerial bombs, one operational-tactical long-range missile, and 602 fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces had conducted a long-range strike targeting an oil refinery in the southwestern Russian city of Ufa, describing the operation as the second counterstrike against Russia's deliberate stalling of the conflict.
Zelensky also announced that Ukrainian strikes had hit an important military-industrial facility in the Penza region, responsible for the research, development, and production of missile components.
Additionally, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported on Thursday that the early morning attack on the city had killed 10 people. According to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kiev City Military Administration, the number of injured had risen to 56.
In the early hours of Thursday, a series of intense explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital. Klitschko stated that Russian forces had launched a missile strike on Kiev.
Russia sinks 5 Ukrainian boats, Ukraine strikes Russian facilities
Chinese scientists have set a new record for the coldest temperature ever achieved by humans, cooling a cloud of rubidium atoms to 9.7 picokelvin, and keeping it stable for observation for seven seconds.
The result, announced by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization on Friday, marks a major step toward absolute zero, the lowest temperature theoretically possible, creating the coldest artificial substance known to date. The work was published on Friday in the journal Science.
The experiment was carried out in the ultra-cold atom physics rack aboard China's space station. The project began feasibility studies in 2011, and its experiment system was launched with the Mengtian module in 2022. It was organized by the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization under the CAS, while completed by Beijing University and the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) of the CAS.
They cooled a rubidium atom cloud to an equivalent temperature of 9.7 picokelvin, 14 orders of magnitude below the roughly 300 kelvin room temperature on Earth, and kept it stable for observation for seven seconds. The result broke the previous record of 38 picokelvin, set by a German team in 2021.
"We have mastered the whole technology chain for deep cooling of ultracold atoms, allowing atoms to reach the picokelvin level. This shows that our engineering capability in deep atomic cooling is up to the world advanced level," said Chen Weibiao, Party secretary of SIOM.
On Earth, gravity pulls atoms downward, making it hard to cool them sufficiently. In the microgravity environment of China's space station, atoms could float freely and reach far lower temperatures without strong external confinement. The Chinese research team remotely controlled the space station's equipment from the ground to make the breakthrough, said the CAS center.
China sets world record for coldest temperature aboard space station
