Skygazers have long been finding shapes among the stars, but the latest photos released from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes showcase a nebula so striking that its nickname seems clear: The Cat’s Head Nebula.
NASA recently released new photographs of the Carina Nebula, a star-forming area of space located about 7,500 light-years from Earth. The new collection of photographs comes from both the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, which means the images showcase a variety of different colors that offer researchers insight into star formation.
The Carina Nebula gets the Cat’s Head Nebula nickname from its shape, which looks like a seated cat, complete with a glowing red “eye” – which is likely a young star that’s still shrouded in dust.
The Carina Nebula isn’t just delightful because of its cat-like shape – as an area where stars are forming, studying this particular patch of the sky is giving researchers additional insight into star formation.
Carina Nebula won’t always look like a cat – and because the light from the nebula has taken 7,500 years to reach Earth, it could already look quite different. NASA says that the Cat’s Head look is a temporary scene and that stars will disperse as the nebula evolves.
Using different cameras to photograph the region of star formation creates not just wildly different photographs but also offers layers of insight for researchers. The rainbow-colored photograph captured by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the visible light coming from the nebula.
The multi-colored background isn’t just dazzling to look at but offers clues as to what’s happening as the young stars form. “Hubble’s filters record scattered starlight along with light emitted from oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur,” NASA explains. “Differences in gas excitation, absorption by dust, and illumination all contribute to the changing colors.”
Photos from the James Webb Space Telescope capture the Cat’s Head Nebula using near-infrared, which can better see through some of that dust to reveal more of the structure and what’s inside and behind that cat-like dust cloud.
The James Webb Space Telescope also has a mid-infrared camera, which reveals more of the cat-shaped dust structure. NASA says the bright yellow to the right of the “cat” in the mid-infrared image is likely an infant star.
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