Journey to The Cat's Eye Nebula in Draco | Hubble & Euclid Space Telescopes
This video takes the viewer on a journey through space to one of the most visually intricate remnants of a dying star—the Cat’s Eye Nebula, also known as NGC 6543. This extraordinary planetary nebula lies in the constellation Draco and has captivated astronomers for decades with its elaborate and multilayered structure. Observations with European Space Agency’s Gaia mission place the nebula at a distance of 4 400 light years away.
This time, Hubble is joined by ESA’s Euclid space telescope to create a new image of NGC 6543. The nebula is showcased through the combined eyes of Hubble and Euclid, revealing the remarkable complexity of stellar death in this object. Though primarily designed to map the distant Universe, Euclid captures the Cat’s Eye Nebula as part of its deep imaging surveys. In Euclid’s wide, near-infrared and visible light view, the arcs and filaments of the nebula’s bright central region are situated within a halo of colorful fragments of gas zooming away from the star. This ring was ejected from the star at an earlier stage before the main nebula at the center formed.
Planetary nebulae, so-called because of their round shape when viewed through early telescopes, are in fact expanding gas thrown off by stars in their final stages of evolution. It was the Cat’s Eye Nebula itself where this fact was first discovered in 1864—examining the spectrum of its light reveals the emission from individual molecules that is characteristic of a gas, distinguishing planetary nebulae from stars and galaxies.
Duration: 1 minute, 30 seconds
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