The coldest object in the universe, known as the Boomerang Nebula, is one Kelvin, but in Fahrenheit, it would be minus 458 degrees.
According to a press release, scientists spotted the object with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope. In shape and color, it resembles a breast cancer awareness ribbon, but also has a ghostly blue aura surrounding it.
The scientists published their findings in the Astrophysical Journal and conducted their work to discover the objects true appearance and properties.
"This ultra-cold object is extremely intriguing and we're learning much more about its true nature with ALMA," study lead author Raghvendra Sahai, a researcher and principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said. "What seemed like a double lobe, or 'boomerang' shape, from Earth-based optical telescopes, is actually a much broader structure that is expanding rapidly into space."
The Boomerang Nebula got its name for initially appearing lopsided when spotted by the Hubble Telescope.
"When astronomers looked at this object in 2003 with Hubble, they saw a very classic 'hourglass' shape," said Sahai.
It is a relatively young example of a planetary nebula, which is a star that has outgrown its outer layers. When this happens, a white dwarf is left in the middle and it is known to give off a display of radiant colors, caused by gas from intense ultraviolet radiation.
The scientists were able to take the nebula's gas' temperature by observing how it absorbed the cosmic microwave background, typically known to be 2.8 Kelvin. In the case of this star, the gas emitted expands and cools rapidly, similar to how a refrigerator produces cold temperatures.
"Many planetary nebulae have this same double-lobe appearance, which is the result of streams of high-speed gas being jettisoned from the star," Sahai said. "The jets then excavate holes in a surrounding cloud of gas that was ejected by the star even earlier in its lifetime as a red giant."
The research is also significant for the crisp and precise resolution of the ALMA telescope. The clear picture of the nebula made possible many of the observations the researchers made for their study.
"This is important for the understanding of how stars die and become planetary nebulae," said Sahai. "Using ALMA, we were quite literally and figuratively able to shed new light on the death throes of a Sun-like star."
