Hanny van Arkel, a primary schoolteacher from the Netherlands, has discovered a mysterious and unique astronomical object through the Galaxy Zoo Project, which allows members of the public to take part in astronomy research online. The strange green gaseous object with a hole in the center has been informally named Hanny’s "Voorwerp" after the Dutch word for "object." The object is believed to be a massive ‘light echo’ produced as light from a distant, now dim, quasar strikes the interstellar gas.