Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the "Boomerang Nebula" in 1980 after observing it with the Anglo-Australian telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory. The outflowing gas is moving outwards at a speed of about 164 km/s and expanding rapidly as it moves out into space this gas expansion results in the nebula's unusually low temperature. Millimeter scale dust grains mask portions of the nebula's center so most escaping visible light is in two opposing lobes forming a distinctive hourglass shape as viewed from Earth. It continues to form and develop due to the outflow of gas from its core where a star in its late stage life sheds mass and emits starlight illuminating dust in the nebula. The Boomerang Nebula is believed to be a star system evolving toward the planetary nebula phase. The nebula's temperature is measured at 1 K (−272.15 ☌ −457.87 ☏) making it the coolest natural place currently known in the Universe.
It is also known as the Bow Tie Nebula and catalogued as LEDA 3074547. The Boomerang Nebula is a protoplanetary nebula located 5,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States) and the WFPC2 Science Team.The Boomerang Nebula, as taken by Hubble Space Telescope in 2003Ĭentaurus Bipolar Nebula, ESO 172-7, 2MASS J12444609-5431133, LEDA 3074547 The original Hubble image was obtained by R. The Hubble Space Telescope project is an international cooperation between ESA and NASA. The light in the image comes from starlight from the central star reflected by dust particles. The image was exposed for 1000 seconds through a green-yellow filter. The rapid expansion of the nebula has enabled it to become the coldest known region in the Universe. This is 10-100 times more than in other similar objects. The star has been losing as much as one-thousandth of a solar mass of material per year for 1500 years. The general bow-tie shape of the Boomerang appears to have been created by a very fierce 500 000 kilometre-per-hour wind blowing ultracold gas away from the dying central star. Why planetary nebulae have so many different shapes is still a mystery. However, the Boomerang Nebula is so young that it may not have had time to develop these structures.
The diffuse bow-tie shape of this nebula makes it quite different from other observed planetary nebulae, which normally have lobes that look more like 'bubbles' blown in the gas. It shows faint arcs and ghostly filaments embedded within the diffuse gas of the nebula's smooth 'bow tie' lobes. The Hubble telescope took this image in 1998. The high-resolution Hubble images indicate that 'the Bow tie Nebula' would perhaps have been a better name. Unable to see the detail that only Hubble can reveal, the astronomers saw merely a slight asymmetry in the nebula's lobes suggesting a curved shape like a boomerang. Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the Boomerang Nebula in 1980 after observing it with a large ground-based telescope in Australia. It is the only object found so far that has a temperature lower than the background radiation. Even the -270☌ background glow from the Big Bang is warmer than this nebula. With a temperature of -272☌, it is only 1 degree warmer than absolute zero (the lowest limit for all temperatures). In 1995, using the 15-metre Swedish ESO Submillimetre Telescope in Chile, astronomers Sahai and Nyman revealed that it is the coldest place in the Universe found so far. The Boomerang Nebula is one of the Universe's peculiar places. Planetary nebulae form around a bright, central star when it expels gas in the last stages of its life. It is in the constellation of Centaurus, 5000 light-years from Earth.
This NASA/ ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a young planetary nebula known (rather curiously) as the Boomerang Nebula. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image illustrates how Hubble's keen vision reveals surprises in celestial objects. The Boomerang Nebula is a young planetary nebula and the coldest object found in the Universe so far.