The coldest place in the universe- The Boomerang Nebula
Have you ever wondered what could be the coldest place in the universe? How cold it can be and where is it located? Let me take you to the coldest place in our universe through this blog. At a bone-chilling -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, the universe's coldest spot is more than three times icier than any site on Earth.
Photo credit-nasa.gov
The Boomerang Nebula, a bright cosmic cloud situated 5,000 light-years afar in the constellation Centaurus, is the Universe's coldest location.
According to 1995 research by astronomers Raghvendra Sahai and Lars-ke Nyman, the nebula has the distinction of being the universe's coldest location.
Sahai and Nyman studied the Boomerang Nebula using the 15-meter Swedish ESO Submillimeter Telescope in Chile and found that its temperature was -272°C, or barely 1°C above absolute zero. Astronomers Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott discovered the double-lobed form of the Boomerang Nebula in 1980 while using the Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory.
Photo credit-astronomynow.com
The Boomerang Nebula is actually a planetary nebula, which causes the star to lose its material out into space in two opposed directions, leading to this symmetrical creation. However, more recent Hubble Space Telescope images show that it really has a double-lobed form and does not resemble a boomerang at all.
The idea that there may be a region in the Universe that is cooler than the stated background glow left over from the Big Bang was being considered by astronomer Raghvender Sahai in the mid-1990s. After studying the Boomerang Nebula, Dr. Sahai and his colleague, Dr. Nyman, came to the conclusion that it was accumulating cosmic rays. Since the Boomerang Nebula is the only spot known to be colder than the background light, they deduced that it is the coldest place we are aware of in the Universe.
What makes the Boomerang Nebula so cold?
The Boomerang Nebula is a planetary nebula, which is a product of the death phase of a star similar to the Sun. The star sheds its outer layers as it runs out of fuel due to instability at its core. This material is pushed outward by a star wind, a stream of charged particles, frequently forming a spherical, rolled shape.
Photo credit-nasa.gov
Despite not having the rounded shape of a normal planetary nebula, the Boomerang Nebula has been rapidly ejecting massive quantities of cosmic matter for around 1,500 years. Boomerang's overall bow-tie form is believed to have been produced by a powerful wind traveling at 500 000 km/h that blew ultracold gas away from the dying core star. Since 1500 years ago, the star has been shedding as much material as one-thousandth of a solar mass annually. In comparison to other comparable things, this is 10-100 times greater.
Beyond what we've found so far, there's probably a spot that's much colder. Simply said, we must keep seeking.