Catty Star
A dying star known as the Cat's Eye Nebula shows delicate streamers of gas and dust in this composite X-ray and visible light image from two of NASA's Great Observatories. The hot X-ray gas, in the center, glows blue in the false-color image, with cooler gas colored red and purple. The nebula formed as a star neared the end of its life and expelled its outer layers into space. As they expand at several million miles per hour, these layers ram into thinner gas expelled earlier in the star's life, sculpting the shape seen in this image. The star's hot core, known as a white dwarf, energizes the expelled gas, causing it to glow. Over the next few millennia, the gas will expand and cool so much that the nebula will fade from sight. The Sun will undergo the same process, forming a similar nebula, in several billion years. The image was compiled with observations from Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory. [NASA/CXC/SAO/STScI]
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