Boomerang Nebula

Common card · No. 272848

The Boomerang Nebula is a bipolar reflection young planetary nebula located approximately 5,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. Holmberg & Lauberts (Uppsala Observatory) and Schuster & West (European Southern Observatory (ESO)) in their survey of 1976 or earlier discovered the existence of an object at the location. Before or during 1978 I.S. Glass discovered the object as a nebula with G. Wegner, both of South African Astronomical Observatory, from data of the ESO Quick Blue Survey. Wegner and Glass in their paper of 1979 mentioned a "butterfly" or "bow-tie" like shape. K. N. R. Taylor (University of New South Wales) and S. M. Scarrott (Durham University) made observations July 17, 1979 and named it after the boomerang. Modelling of measurements of outflow of the nebula published 1997 by Sahai (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Nyman (ESO & Onsala Space Observatory) indicate kelvin (K) less than cosmic microwave background radiation (cmbr), making it the coldest natural...

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