The green object is thenewly discovered astronomical object.
"Hanny's Voorwerp" is a new celestial object discovered by Hanny Van Arkel, a 25 year old Dutch schoolteacher. Ms Van Arkel, who apparently has no background in astronomy, brought this object to the attention of the scientific community while participating in the Galexy Zoo project;
Galaxy Zoo enlists the aid of large numbers of amateurs by posting images obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) which is systematically scanning a portion of the sky thought to include one million (of 100 to 1000) galaxies. The amateurs are principally asked to classify the galaxies by shape, but post truly unusual objects, such as that found by Ms. Van Ackel, to a discussion forum. Human shape recognition works faster and more accurately that any automatic device that is now possible, and without the help of the amateurs the analysis of the data would oberwhelm the community of professional astronomers. The website has already been used to collect millions of classifications, and its organizers are currently preparing the first science papers for submission to peer-reviewed journals. Thus the Internet has been used to successfully create an effective scientific instrument.
Researchers think this green blob got its energy from light emitted by a quasar (a powerful radiation source powered by a supermassive black hole) that has since gone dim.
They think the quasar was hosted in a nearby spiral galaxy called IC 2497. It was so bright that, if the quasar was still active, it would be visible from Earth with binoculars.
However, because of the distance between the galaxy and the Voorwerp, light from the quasar would have taken tens of thousands of years to reach the gaseous blob.
This is why the Voorwerp is still bright despite the quasar having now shut off.
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