Cat's Eye Nebula Age
Though the Cats Eye Nebula was one of the first planetary nebulae to be discovered it is one of the most complex such nebulae seen in space.
Cat's eye nebula age. Approximately 1000 years ago the pattern of mass loss suddenly changed and the Cats Eye Nebula itself started forming inside the dusty shells. A planetary nebula is the glowing gas ejected during the final stages of evolution of a star similar in mass to our Sun. The image from Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys ACS shows a bulls eye pattern of eleven or even more concentric rings or shells around the Cats Eye.
Visually it is similar to the cats eye and was named accordingly. I took this over two nights from Nerpio. The Spectacular Cats Eye Planetary Nebula 33 Thousands of years ago a star reached the end of its life and began to eject its outer layers forming one of the most complex planetary nebulae in the sky.
The full beauty of the Cats Eye Nebula NGC 6543 is revealed in this new detailed view from NASAs Hubble Space Telescope. The Cats Eye Nebula NGC 6543 is a planetary nebula in the constellation of Draco. The central star will continue to expand for another 10000 years give or take just a tiny fraction of its total lifespan until the central star runs out of atmosphere.
Planetary nebulae are like snowflakes. The Cats Eye Nebula was first observed on February 15 1786 by William Herschel. It is a Planetary Nebula expanding gas shell ejected from an end-of-life star in the constellation of the Dragon whose age is estimated at only 1000 years and the distance at only 5200 light years.
The alluring Cats Eye nebula however lies three thousand light-years from Earth across interstellar space. High-resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope revealed extraordinary structures such as nodes jets and arch-like features. Structurally it is one of the most complex nebulae known with.
The distance measured by the Gaia mission is 655 light-years. To some it may look like a cats eye. In 1994 Hubble first revealed NGC 6543s surprisingly.