Coldest Place in the Universe - Hubble Discoveries

The Boomerang Nebula, a very cold place indeed. This is my debut 'Hubble's Discoveries' video made with NASA/ESA footage.
Enjoy the video.

The Boomerang Nebula is a young planetary nebula and the coldest object found in the Universe so far. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is yet another example of how Hubble's sharp eye reveals surprising details in celestial objects.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a young planetary nebula known (rather curiously) as the Boomerang Nebula. It is in the constellation of Centaurus, 5000 light-years from Earth. Planetary nebulae form around a bright, central star when it expels gas in the last stages of its life.

The Boomerang Nebula is one of the Universe's peculiar places. In 1995, using the 15-metre Swedish ESO Submillimetre Telescope in Chile, astronomers revealed that it is the coldest place in the Universe found so far. With a temperature of -272C, it is only 1 degree warmer than absolute zero (the lowest limit for all temperatures). Even the -270C background glow from the Big Bang is warmer than this nebula. It is the only object found so far that has a temperature lower than the background radiation.

Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the Boomerang Nebula in 1980 after observing it with a large ground-based telescope in Australia. 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. The high-resolution Hubble images indicate that 'the Bow tie Nebula' would perhaps have been a better name.

The Hubble telescope took this image in 1998. It shows faint arcs and ghostly filaments embedded within the diffuse gas of the nebula's smooth 'bow tie' lobes. 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. However, the Boomerang Nebula is so young that it may not have had time to develop these structures. Why planetary nebulae have so many different shapes is still a mystery.

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. The star has been losing as much as one-thousandth of a solar mass of material per year for 1500 years. This is 10-100 times more than in other similar objects. The rapid expansion of the nebula has enabled it to become the coldest known region in the Universe.

The image was exposed for 1000 seconds through a green-yellow filter. The light in the image comes from starlight from the central star reflected by dust particles.

Credit: European Space Agency, NASA

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• coldest
• place
• in
• the
• universe
• astronomy
• space
• nebula
• nebulae
• hubble
• telescope

[LegendGamer472]

Actually the coldest place in the Universe is Sweden. This is because some scientists managed to cool a material (can't remember what it's called) to less than one billionth of a degree above absoulute zero. This is colder than the Boomerang Nebula and therefore the coldest place in the Universe.

[TheUniverseUnfolded]

@LegendGamer472 This video refers to the coldest temperature due to natural phenomenon. I wouldn't call Sweden the coldest place in the Universe as the area itself is not colder than the Boomerang Nebula. Only a few rhodium atoms were cooled to 100pK. And the rhodium metal was under laboratory conditions and did not occur without the intervention of unnatural causes. Laboratory experiments do not count in 'coldest places in the Universe'.

[rasomaso]

so planets can't be at absolute zero?

[TheUniverseUnfolded]

@rasomaso Absolute Zero is the complete absence of movement of molecules. Also since heat is a form of energy then absolute zero means that the object has no energy whatsoever, which means no motion. Atoms have motion to be atoms (electrons orbiting the nucleus). No motion means no matter. Wierd huh?

What makes absolute zero impossible is because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - which states that we cannot know the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously.

[kazzdude1]

@TheUniverseUnfolded So is space itself absolute zero? I know that there's no oxygen and no sound in space and I know that there are certain gas clouds that are made up of molecures and of course planets. But are there certain areas that are absolute zero out there in space?

[TheUniverseUnfolded]

@kazzdude1 No, space itself and any object we know of is not at absolute zero. For there to be a place of no heat, there would be no energy, thus no entropy, thus no arrow of time, which is as far as we know, impossible. Hope that answered your question. Absolute zero has never been witnessed naturally or experimentally.

[slowmopoke]

hmm...doesnt look like my x-wife

[michaeldriggers12333]

So is there an absolute temperature of absolute zero?

[PsiStarstormOmega985]

@TheUniverseUnfolded but why do i see absolute zero dream achieved in the suggestions area?

[MsCrappants]

the coldest place in the solar system is puto and sedna and eris

[markmrlyrical]

this guy is a moron for instance it was 170 bilionth of a degree above absolute zero and for instance it was not all of sweden it was in a lab give up on trying to correct people or prepare to be corrected

[TronixGuy93]

Why did I get the urge to play Final Fantasy 1-3 again?

[WatchmenDrManhattan]

I want to correct the title it is the coldest place in the universe that we can see there are many more that are far colder

[heatphaze]

interesting :) music reminds me of final fantasy too

[sidewaysgravity790]

@TheUniverseUnfolded i love science

[disagreeablesob]

@HLGToys By bottom I mean the level at which the laws of physics as we apply them end,and I mean that any matter approaching this theoretical point ceases to exist as we understand "existence" appearing to be annhilated by the stresses induced by the hole's hypergravity.If a black hole has a region that could be pointed to on a map as it's bottom is subject to pure conjecture,as far as anyone knows,once a black hole begins it's descent out of normal time and space,it's descent continues forever.