All images: NASA, ESA
The Boomerang Nebula is a young planetary nebula. It is in the constellation of Centaurus, 5000 light-years from Earth, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).
In 1995, astronomers Sahai and Nyman revealed that the Boomerang Nebula is the coldest place in the Universe found so far. With a temperature of -272°C, it is only 1 degree warmer than absolute zero (the lowest limit for all temperatures).
Even the -270°C 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, the ESA says.
In 1980, astronomers Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the Boomerang Nebula after observing it with a large ground-based telescope in Australia. Unable to see the detail that only Hubble can reveal, they saw merely a slight asymmetry in the nebula’s lobes suggesting a curved shape like a boomerang. The high-resolution Hubble images indicated that ‘the Bow tie Nebula’ would perhaps have been a better name.