Over the past decades, scientists have used these two main methods to cool the gases to such low temperatures. The first of these methods is called Laser Cooling. It is when scientists stream photon lasers from many directions into the gas. An atom moving towards the laser would thus absorb a photon and slow down. This atom then releases a photon in a random direction. Over many repetitions, this process slows down the atoms and thus lowers the temperature of the cloud.

The other process of cooling is called Evaporative cooling, which basically removes all the warmest atoms from the cloud. In this process, a magnetic trap is used to hold the lower energy atoms in place, while the higher energy atoms are allowed to escape. This also lowers the overall energy of the cloud of atoms, and therefore lowers its temperature.