Cat's Eye Nebula Hubble
About This Image.
Cat's eye nebula hubble. Hubble reveals the full beauty of a bulls eye pattern of eleven or so concentric rings around the Cats Eye Nebula also known as NGC 6543. Hubble Space Telescope NGC 6543. The Cats Eye Nebula NGC 6543 is a young planetary nebula in the constellation Draco midway between Delta and Zeta Dra.
By comparing images spanning 20 years or more we can watch the nearest of these gently expand without changing their shapes or brightness. As we zoom in we see first an image constructed from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 then an image taken by the Nordic Optical Telescope and finally the NASAESA Hubble Space Telescope image. To some it may look like a cats eye.
This nebulas dying central star may have produced the simple outer pattern of dusty concentric shells by shrugging off outer. One of the brightest objects of its type its resemblance to a cats eye is due to a series of gas loops that have been ejected by the central star over the past 1000 years or so. The Cats Eye Nebula also known as NGC 6543 is a visual fossil record of the dynamics and late evolution of a dying star.
The Hubble images show that from 1994 to 2004 the Cats Eye Nebula has expanded. The Hubble Space Telescope has observed about 100 of these objects starting with the Cats Eye nebula in 1994. In this image from the NASAESA Hubble Space Telescope numerous bubbles are visible.
In this detailed view from NASAs Hubble Space Telescope the so-called Cats Eye Nebula looks like the penetrating eye of the disembodied sorcerer Sauron from the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Hubble Space Telescope downloaded from the Hubble Legacy Archive Data preprocessing. The Cats Eye Nebula also known as NGC 6543 is a visual fossil record of the dynamics and late evolution of a dying star.
Chandra X-Ray Data at. Three thousand light years from Earth the Cats Eye Nebula NGC 6543 is a sight that draws in the human eye. Although the rings may be the key to explaining the final gasp of the dying central star the mystery behind the Cats Eye Nebulas nested Russian doll structure remains largely.