Thursday, January 28, 2010

Chill Out

Where are the coldest places in the universe?

The coldest temperature measured on Earth’s surface was at Vostok, Antarctica. In 1983, it reached minus 129 degrees Fahrenheit there.

The coldest place in our solar system is Neptune’s moon Triton, at minus 315 degrees Fahrenheit.

Two of the coldest known places in the universe are:
- intergalactic space, at an inhospitable minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit, and
- the Boomerang Nebula, a gas cloud being expelled by a dying star in our Milky Way Galaxy. At minus 457.6 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s currently the coldest known spot in the universe.


What’s the Ultimate Cold?

Absolute zero, the coldest theoretical temperature, is minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. It has not yet been measured at any location, although scientists creating controlled environments in laboratories on Earth have come within a fraction of one degree.