NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

X-rays From The Cat's Eye

Haunting patterns within planetary nebula NGC 6543 [ http://nineplanets.…] readily suggest its popular moniker -- the Cat's Eye nebula. In 1995, a stunning false-color optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope [ http://oposite.stsc…] detailed the swirls of this glowing nebula [ http://www.seds.org…], known to be the gaseous shroud expelled from a dying sun-like star [ http://observe.ivv.…stellardeath_opening .html ] about 3,000 light-years from Earth. This composite picture combines the famous Hubble image with new x-ray data [ http://chandra.harv…history.html ] from the orbiting Chandra Observatory [ http://chandra.harv…] and reveals surprisingly intense x-ray emission indicating the presence of extremely hot gas. X-ray emission is shown as blue-purple hues superimposed on red and green optical emission. The nebula's central star itself is clearly immersed in the multimillion degree, x-ray emitting gas. Other pockets of x-ray hot gas seem to be bordered by cooler gas emitting strongly at optical wavelengths, a clear indication that expanding hot gas is sculpting the visible Cat's Eye [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] filaments and structures. Gazing into the Cat's Eye, astronomers see the fate of our sun [ http://www.astro.wa…], destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase [ http://ad.usno.navy…] of evolution ... in about 5 billion years [ http://chandra.harv…].

NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/] / X-ray: Y. Chu (UIUC [ http://www.astro.ui…]) et al., Optical: J. P. Harrington, K. J. Borkowski (UMD [ http://www.astro.um…]),
Composite: Z. Levay (STScI [ http://www.ststci.e…])

x-ray

planetary nebula

ngc6543

cat's eye nebula

1995

Washington

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Earth

Sun

1995

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap010111