Cat's Eye Nebula Age
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.
Cat's eye nebula age. The Discovery the Cats Eye Nebula. The Cats Eye Nebula was first observed on February 15 1786 by William Herschel. A classic planetary nebula the Cats Eye NGC 6543 represents a final brief yet glorious phase in the life of a sun-like star.
The alluring Cats Eye nebula however lies three thousand light-years from Earth across interstellar space. Visually it is similar to the cats eye and was named accordingly. High-resolution images from the Hubble Space Telescope revealed extraordinary structures such as nodes jets and arch-like features.
It has been expanding ever since as can be seen by comparing Hubble images taken in 1994 1997 2000 and 2002. Structurally it is one of the most complex nebulae known with. The nebulas structural complexity may be the result of material being expelled from a binary central star but the existence of a binary companion has not yet been.
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. The distance measured by the Gaia mission is 655 light-years. Approximately 1000 years ago the pattern of mass loss suddenly changed and the Cats Eye Nebula itself started forming inside the dusty shells.
This image reveals new details of the Cats Eye Nebula catalogued as NGC 6543 one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen. 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. Previously this was thought to be composed of stars.
Herschel was a German-born astronomer who emigrated to Great Britain at age 19. In 1994 Hubble first revealed NGC 6543s surprisingly. Known as NGC 6543 it is located 3300 light years from Earth in the constellation Draco.