The title for the coldest place in the universe belongs to the Boomerang Nebula, it is a planetary nebula that is located 5000 light years away from the Earth in the Centaurus constellation. A planetary nebula is formed around a bright central star when it expels gas at a rapid pace near the end of its life.
With a temperature of -272°C, as measured by astronomers Sahai and Nyman using a 15-metre Swedish ESO Submillimetre Telescope, it is 1 degree less than absolute zero temperature. Absolute zero is the theoretically coldest temperature in the universe at -273.15°C.
It is even warmer than the cosmic microwave background glow left over from the Big Bang (-270°C) which makes it the coldest place in the entire universe.
If we compare this with the coldest place on Earth, which is Vostok Station in Antarctica that recorded the lowest ever temperature at -89.2°C, Boomerang Nebula would be roughly 3 times colder than the coldest place on Earth.
Who discovered the Boomerang Nebula?
Boomerang Nebula was discovered by astronomers Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrot in 1980 while exploring the space with a large ground-based telescope in Australia. Due to the dense gases surrounding the nebula it appeared as a boomerang to them, but later it was revealed that the Boomerang Nebula is shaped like a bowtie or an hourglass.The hourglass or bow tie shape of the Nevula was identified in the year 2003.
What created the Bow-tie shape of the Boomerang Nebula?
The bow-tie shape of the Boomerang Nebula is created by the high-speed winds reaching upto a speed of 500,000 km/hr causing ultracold gases being released away from the dying star. The speed at which the gases are expelled creates an environment that is so cool that it even surpasses the temperature of the space.
The astonishing thing about Boomerang Nebula is that it is shedding its outer layer faster than similar stars and about 100 billion times faster than our Sun. In the last 1500 years, the Nebula has lost around 1 and a half times the mass of our Sun releasing unimaginable amount of matter into the space.
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