Ghostly Cat’s Head Nebula Lurks Within Sight of NASA’s Hubble, Webb

@NASAHubble and @NASAWebb captured a purr-fect view of the Cat’s Head Nebula. This long thin structure, made of dark, dense dust, looks like the head of a cat, its eye a newborn star still shrouded by the dust and gas from which it formed. Hubble and Webb’s contrasting and complementary views give us a fuller picture of the features of this object. In the mid-infrared, as seen by Webb, the dust shines brightly while in the near-infrared, Webb can see through the dust to the stars hidden within. In visible light, Hubble's view shows a dark brown pillar of dust, with a yellow ridge along the right side. This bright rim shows gas illuminated and ionized by ultraviolet radiation from nearby massive stars. On the left are some dust pillars seen in the mid-infrared that are not observed in visib