Close-up: Cat’s Eye Nebula—NGC 6543 in Draco | Hubble & Euclid Space Telescopes
This time, Hubble is joined by ESA’s Euclid space telescope to create a new image of NGC 6543. The nebula is showcased through the combined eyes of Hubble and Euclid, revealing the remarkable complexity of stellar death in this object. Though primarily designed to map the distant Universe, Euclid captures the Cat’s Eye Nebula as part of its deep imaging surveys. In Euclid’s wide, near-infrared and visible light view, the arcs and filaments of the nebula’s bright central region are situated within a halo of colorful fragments of gas zooming away from the star. This ring was ejected from the star at an earlier stage before the main nebula at the center formed.
Planetary nebulae, so-called because of their round shape when viewed through early telescopes, are in fact expanding gas thrown off by stars in their final stages of evolution. It was the Cat’s Eye Nebula itself where this fact was first discovered in 1864—examining the spectrum of its light reveals the emission from individual molecules that is characteristic of a gas, distinguishing planetary nebulae from stars and galaxies.
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has expanded our understanding of planetary nebulae; its detailed images showed that the simple, circular appearance of a planetary nebula seen from the ground belies a very complex morphology. This was particularly true of the Cat’s Eye Nebula, where Hubble’s images in 1995 revealed never-before-seen structures that broadened our understanding of how planetary nebulae come to be.
This new Hubble image shows the nebula's core filled with billowing gas via the High Resolution Channel sub-instrument on its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). This instrument is optimized for capturing very sharp images of fine details in a small area, such as the complex features here. The data presents a mixture of concentric shells, jets of high-speed gas and dense knots formed by shock interactions. These structures are believed to record episodic mass loss from the dying star at the nebula’s center, creating a record of its final stages.
Image Description: Two images of a planetary nebula in space. The image to the left, labeled “Euclid & Hubble”, shows the whole nebula and its surroundings. A star in the very center is surrounded by white bubbles and loops of gas, all shining with a powerful blue light. Farther away a broken ring of red and blue gas clouds surrounds the nebula. The background shows many stars and distant galaxies. A white box indicates the center of the nebula and this region is the image to the right, labeled “Hubble”. It shows the multi-layered bubbles, pointed jets and circular shells of gas that make up the nebula, as well as the central star, in greater detail.
Duration: 30 seconds
Release Date: March 3, 2026
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