At a cosmologically crisp one degree Kelvin (minus 458 degrees
Fahrenheit), the Boomerang nebula is the coldest known object in the
universe -- colder, in fact, than the faint afterglow of the Big Bang,
the explosive event that created the cosmos.
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
(ALMA) telescope in Chile have taken a new look at this object to learn
more about its frigid properties and to determine its true shape, which
has an eerily ghost-like appearance.
"This ultra-cold object is extremely intriguing and we're learning
much more about its true nature with ALMA," said Raghvendra Sahai, a
researcher and principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif., and lead author of a paper published in the
Astrophysical Journal. “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."
As originally observed with ground-based telescopes, this nebula
appeared lopsided, which is how it got its name. Later observations with
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope revealed a bow-tie-like structure. The
new ALMA data, however, reveal that the Hubble image tells only part of
the story, and the twin lobes seen in that image may actually be a trick
of light as seen at visible wavelengths.
The researchers discovered a dense lane of millimeter-sized dust
grains surrounding the star, which explains why its outer cloud has an
hourglass shape in visible light. These minute dust grains have created a
mask that shades a portion of the central star and allows its light to
leak out only in narrow but opposite directions into the cloud, giving
it an hourglass appearance.
"This is important for the understanding of how stars die and become
planetary nebulas,” said Sahai. “Using ALMA, we were quite literally,
and figuratively, able to shed new light on the death throes of a
sun-like star."
The Boomerang nebula, located about 5,000 light-years away in the
constellation Centaurus, is a relatively young example of an object
known as a planetary nebula. Planetary nebulas, contrary to their name,
are actually the end-of-life phases of stars like our sun that have
sloughed off their outer layers. What remains at their centers are white
dwarf stars, which emit intense ultraviolet radiation that causes the
gas in the nebulae to glow and emit light in brilliant colors.
Read the full ALMA release online at https://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/alma-reveals-coldest-place-in-the-universe .
Additional authors on this paper include Wouter Vlemmings, Chalmers
University of Technology, Onsala, Sweden; Patrick Huggins, New York
University, New York; Lars-Ake Nyman, Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago
de Chile; and Yiannis Gonidakis, CSIRO, Australia Telescope National
Facility.
ALMA, an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of
Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of
Chile. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by
European Southern Observatory, on behalf of North America by the
National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and on behalf of East Asia
by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA
Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the
construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the
National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by
Associated Universities, Inc.
The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
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