Pure Artistry

The last gasp of a dying star looks like a work of cosmic art in this composite image from two space telescopes. Known as the Cat's Eye Nebula, it consists of rings of gas and dust blown into space from the star's surface. In time, all the gas in the star's outer layers will blow away, leaving only the star's hot but dead core. In this false-color image, red and green represent an image from Hubble Space Telescope, while blue and purple show X-rays snapped by Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The X-rays come from hotter regions, where one wave of expelled gas overtakes another. [NASA/UIUC/Y.Chu et al./STScI]