It continues to form and develop due to the outflow of gas from its core where a star in its late stage life sheds mass and emits starlight illuminating dust in the nebula.

Millimeter scale dust grains mask portions of the nebula's center so most escaping visible light is in two opposing lobes forming a distinctive hourglass shape as viewed from Earth.

Keith Taylor and Mike Scarrott called it the "Boomerang Nebula" in 1980 after observing it with the Anglo-Australian telescope at the Siding Spring Observatory.

Unable to view it with great clarity, the astronomers saw merely a slight asymmetry in the nebula's lobes suggesting a curved shape like a boomerang.

[7] The visible double lobe of the Boomerang Nebula was observed to be surrounded by a larger spherical volume of cold gas seen only in sub-millimeter radio wavelengths.