It's very rare to see novice impress champions. But that's exactly what happened when Chinese astronauts showed their hands at table tennis aboard the space lab Tiangong-2.

Astronaut Chen Dong served and returned the ball single-handedly shown via video link during a CCTV reality show "Challenge the Impossible" on Sunday.

His performance impressed Rio Olympics gold medalist Ma Long and silver medalist Zhang Jike as well as the head coach of the Chinese table tennis team Liu Guoliang.

"He moves even faster than Ma and Zhang," said Liu.

Before the game, Chen and Jing Haipeng, an astronaut on his third space trip and the commander of the mission, showed the bat they were given to play table tennis in space and demonstrated their skills.

According to an expert, playing table tennis in space is really mission impossible as both air drag and gravity are needed. In space, when the ball is hit, it goes only straight forward and cannot spin in the air.