Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); NASA/ESA Hubble; NRAO/AUI/NSF
An ancient, red giant star in the throes of a frigid death has produced the coldest known object in the cosmos – the Boomerang Nebula. How this star was able to create an environment strikingly colder than the natural background temperature of deep space has been a compelling mystery for more than two decades. The answer, according to astronomers using ALMA may be that a small companion star has plunged into the heart of the red giant, ejecting most the matter of the larger star as an ultra-cold outflow of gas and dust.
This outflow is expanding so rapidly – about 10 times faster than a single star could produce on its own – that its temperature has fallen to less than 0.5 K (-458.5F)...
Read More
Recent Comments