NGC 6543: Also known as the Cat's Eye, this planetary nebula is located about 3,000 light years from Earth.
Caption: A composite image of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) and Hubble Space Telescope (red and purple) of NGC 6543 shows a phase that Sun-like stars undergo at the end of their lives. Material from the outer layers of the star in the Cat's Eye is flying away at about 4 million miles per hour. A hot core is left behind that eventually collapses to become a white dwarf star. The Chandra data reveal that the central star in NGC 6543 is surrounded by a cloud of multi-million-degree gas.
Scale: Image is
1.2 arcmin across.
Chandra X-ray Observatory ACIS
Image
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