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This is the Cat's Eye nebula.

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It's in the constellation Draco,
about 3,100

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light years from us.

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It's called the Cat’s Eye nebula

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because of the resemblance,
the appearance of cat's eyes.

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We have at the very center of it
a bright star.

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The star has been in the process of dying
for many thousands of years.

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When the star gets near
the end of its life, it expands inside

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as it runs out of hydrogen at the center
and has to turn to fusing helium

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instead of hydrogen.

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The star expands,

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and it can get very unstable
as you get near the end of its lifetime,

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which is when it starts
throwing off these pulses of material.

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You see rings
here, a whole set of 11 different rings

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that go all the way around

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the star, that almost look like tree rings.

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In addition to these rings of light
that you see, you see these pointed

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nebula, which are jets of material
coming out along the north

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and south magnetic poles.

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I love to

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think of this as providing us
a fossil record in the same way

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that if you look
through your layers of stone

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or you look through a slice of a tree
or you see the tree rings,

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it allows you to see what was happening
at different periods of time

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in the history of the star.

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So, somewhere like 15,000 years ago
is when the instability stage of the star

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occurred and started throwing off material
to form the rings of dust.

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And then more recently, a thousand years
ago, it started throwing off the hot gases,

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which are glowing at the center
and give you the very intricate patterns

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and structures that you see now.

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So you've got jets
coming out of the magnetic poles.

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You have ellipsoids
and circles of hot gas, and you've got

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spherically symmetric rings of dust,
all wrapped up in one little package.

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It's the foundations
for the next generation of stars.

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So this material gets thrown out
into what we call the interstellar medium,

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the space between the stars and the
material in that space between the stars.

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And that will later on collect together
gravitationally,

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will pull together
and form new stars and new solar systems.