Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Cold Wind from the Boomerang Nebula Credit: R. Sahai and J. Trauger (JPL), NASA/ESA A cold wind blows from the central star of the Boomerang Nebula. Seen here in a detailed false-color image recorded in 1998 by the Hubble Space Telescope, the nebula lies about 5,000 light-years away towards the grand southern constellation of Centaurus. The symmetric cloud appears to have been created by a high-speed wind of gas and dust blowing from an aging central star at speeds of nearly 600,000 kilometers per hour. This rapid expansion has cooled molecules in the nebular gas to about one degree above absolute zero - colder than even the cosmic background radiation - making it the coldest region observed in the distant Universe. Shining with light from the central star reflected by dust, the frigid Boomerang Nebula is believed to be a star or stellar system evolving toward the planetary nebula phase.
Prehaps you would like this one Bridge... http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=42577#post42577
Couple of things... Absolute zero is Kelvin, right? This is the temperature that matter ceases to be able to move? So, being one degree above absolute zero means that this nebula is basically frozen in time (for a while at least). Am I correct in this assumption?
Thanks wet1 The ant nebula picture is marvelous. I have always been awe struck by the stars and galaxies. I read once in a National Geographic that the number of stars might likely equal all the grains of sand on the earth. I think somewhere in Gen. God tells Abraham his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.... ironic maybe, and sorry, didn't mean to inject theism into it, just can't help it sometimes.
The individual atoms would still be able to move, although applying force to change direction/speed might raise their temperature.
Atom movement is usually associated with temperature increase. What outside force would have enough effect to increase this and thus raise the temperature?
