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PHOTO CAPTION                            Boomerang Nebula
                                         the Coolest Spot
                                         P-48793
                                         June 20, 1997

This false-color image shows the chilliest region in the 
universe, as imaged in the Boomerang Nebula with the NTT/ESO 
telescope at La Silla, Chile through a V-band filter. The farther 
away you look from the central star, which is depicted here as a 
white square, the colder the temperature.  The Boomerang contains 
gas and dust ejected by a Sun-like star in its death throes, and 
is seen here in starlight reflected by the dust particles.

The image is displayed on a log scale and color-coded. Blue 
represents the faintest regions, with yellow, red and white 
representing increasingly brighter regions.  The bipolar lobes, 
seen representing the coldest regions, contain gas ejected from 
the central star and expanding at 590,000 kilometers per hour 
(370,000 miles per hour).  This expansion cools the gas to below 
3 Kelvin, or minus 458 degrees Fahrenheit, which is lower than 
the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation that 
pervades our universe.  This allows carbon monoxide molecules in 
the nebular gas to absorb that background radiation.  The 
absorption signal was detected using the 15-meter (49-foot) 
Swedish-ESO-Submillimeter Telescope at the European Space 
Observatory in La Silla, Chile.

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