NASA Unveils Dazzling New Images of ‘Cat’s Eye Nebula’

NASA Unveils Dazzling New Images of ‘Cat’s Eye Nebula’

By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron

In 1995, NASA published images taken by the then five-year-old Hubble Space Telescope of what the agency described as “one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen.” The photographs showed a dying star, or perhaps even stars, gathered in striking red and green clouds of gas – the so-called Cat’s Eye Nebula. And now, more than 30 years later, and together with the Euclid space telescope, Hubble has trained its eye back on the nebula, revealing it in even more impressive detail.

The images capture a wider view of the nebula, highlighting a ring of material radiating from the center. Incredibly, this “halo” may have been expelled from the system before the rest of the nebula formed.

The combined observations “reveal the remarkable complexity of stellar death in this object,” NASA said in a blog post.

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Some of the new Hubble observations show the Cat’s Eye Nebula, also known as NGC 6543, in the finest detail ever seen. The nebula is about 4,400 light-years away from Earth.

“The data reveal a tapestry of concentric shells, jets of high-velocity gas, and dense knots sculpted by shock interactions, features that seem almost surreal in their intricacy,” NASA wrote.

The observations can provide clues to how nebulae like this are formed. By examining the structure of the Cat’s Eye Nebula in detail, astronomers can trace back its history — essentially enabling them to read a “cosmic ‘fossil record’ of its most recent evolutionary stages,” NASA said.

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