Posted on 11/07/2021 3:09:12 PM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: To some it looks like a cat's eye. To others, perhaps like a giant cosmic conch shell. It is actually one of brightest and most highly detailed planetary nebula known, composed of gas expelled in the brief yet glorious phase near the end of life of a Sun-like star. This nebula's dying central star may have produced the outer circular concentric shells by shrugging off outer layers in a series of regular convulsions. The formation of the beautiful, complex-yet-symmetric inner structures, however, is not well understood. The featured image is a composite of a digitally sharpened Hubble Space Telescope image with X-ray light captured by the orbiting Chandra Observatory. The exquisite floating space statue spans over half a light-year across. Of course, gazing into this Cat's Eye, humanity may well be seeing the fate of our sun, destined to enter its own planetary nebula phase of evolution ... in about 5 billion years.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Border Collies understand everything.
One of the more complex nebula structures that we can see. I think it’s great that they combined images from two different space telescopes for this .
It looks like a power-up.
Gorgeous! The universe is magnificent.
Yes they do! Some can even post articles on Al Gore's fabulous internet!
Sister’s cat gives me that very same glare every time I visit. :-)
Wow. Delightful!
makes me think of those conch shells on the beach with shades of purple inside.
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