NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope was used to capture a stunning image of the “Cat’s Eye Nebula,” a planetary nebula located about 4,000 light-years away.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has taken an image of the Cat’s Eye Nebula that looks like a giant green eye staring back at you. The nebula is located in the constellation Draco and is about 4,000 light-years away from Earth. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1786 and named for its resemblance to an eye when viewed through small telescopes. The gas at the center of the nebula is roughly 65 times more massive than our sun and its outer layers are moving at speeds of over 1 million miles per hour.
The Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Draco. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 21, 1786. A planetary nebula forms when a star with around eight times as much mass as our Sun approaches the end of its life. The star swells into a red giant and sheds its outer layers until it reaches an equilibrium state where it can no longer sustain nuclear fusion reactions in its core.
