Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543)

Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) — nebula, explore its interactive 3D model in Cosmoscope.

Explore Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) in an interactive 3D view of space. Inspect its astronomical data and the observations or reconstructions behind the model.

One of the most intricate planetary nebulae known: nested bubbles, knots and jets around a dying star, inside evenly spaced rings it shed earlier. From Earth’s side its pieces line up into Hubble’s image; fly round it and they part into its 3D shape, whose depths are a model.

Type

Planetary nebula

Distance

About 4,500 light-years, from Gaia’s parallax of its central star

Size

Bright core about 0.4 light-years across, in rings about 1.3 light-years wide

Rings

Evenly spaced shells the star shed before the bright core formed

Shown here

Hubble’s image with its stars removed, cut into many thousands of pieces (fine threads along its filaments, broad ones only for smooth glow) at different depths: from Earth they line up into the image; from elsewhere they show nested bubbles, a waist ring, polar caps and the halo’s concentric shells

3D shape

Illustrative, after Miranda & Solf 1992, Reed et al. 1999 and Balick, Wilson & Hajian 2001

Image credit

ESA, NASA, HEIC and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) · CC BY 4.0

Explore Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) in 3D

Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is placed in three-dimensional space using catalogue coordinates and an adopted astronomical distance. Rotate and zoom to explore the model. Stellar surfaces, gas structure and dust depths may be reconstructed or illustrative, as described in its facts; this is not live imagery from a telescope.