Cat's Eye Nebula Age

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.

Cat's eye nebula age. A planetary nebula forms when Sun-like stars gently eject their outer gaseous layers that form bright nebulae with amazing and confounding shapes. The central nebula very bright was formed 1000 years ago. The Cats Eye Nebula.

The different age material then interacts to form the various shock waves knots you can see. The Discovery the Cats Eye Nebula. Structurally it is one of the most complex of the known nebulae.

Herschel was a German-born astronomer who emigrated to Great Britain at age 19. 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 Cats Eye Nebula was discovered by Herschel in the late 18th century.

The alluring Cats Eye nebula however lies three thousand light-years from Earth across interstellar space. The other nebulosity much fainter was apparently ejected from the star previously every 1500 years or so. In 1994 Hubble first revealed NGC 6543s surprisingly.

Known as NGC 6543 it is located 3300 light years from Earth in the constellation Draco. No two look alike. Approximately 1000 years ago the pattern of mass loss suddenly changed and the Cats Eye Nebula itself started forming inside the dusty shells.

Its haunting symmetries are seen in the very central region of this stunning false-color picture processed to reveal the enormous but extremely faint halo of gaseous material over three light-years across which surrounds the brighter familiar planetary nebula. It is similar in appearance to the Cats Eye Nebula and the Ring Nebula whose size age and physical characteristics are similar to the Dumbbell Nebula varying only in its relative proximity and the. To some it may look like a cats eye.