Featured image (Webb MIRI): NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. Image Processing: J. Depasquale (STScI). CC BY 4.0. Resized and cropped for display.
Somewhere in the Carina Nebula, there’s a cat looking over its shoulder. Or at least that’s what this column of dust looks like once you spot its glowing eye.
New images released on October 29 show a dusty formation nicknamed the Cat’s Head Nebula. It resembles a cat sitting with its back to us, then turning its head to look over its shoulder. Very appropriate behavior for a cosmic cat.
The formation sits within the Carina Nebula, about 7,500 light-years from Earth. Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope captured different views of the same region, and comparing them is the fun part.
What is the glowing eye?
According to NASA’s explanation, the bright “eye” may be a young star still tucked into dust. That’s a possibility, not a confirmed identification.
The cat-shaped silhouette itself is a pillar of gas and dust. Radiation and winds from massive nearby stars likely helped carve its outline. Denser material has resisted that erosion, giving us this particular shape for now.
Same space cat, three very different pictures
Hubble’s visible-light image shows a dark, opaque pillar with a red eye. In Webb’s near-infrared view, more structure shows through the dust, along with stars and even faint background galaxies.
Webb’s mid-infrared view brings out emission from warm dust and carbon-based molecules. The surrounding scene looks redder, and the eye appears white. Different wavelengths bring out different parts of the dust and gas where stars form.
Why are the colors so different?
These are telescope images, but they aren’t ordinary snapshots of what human eyes would see. NASA’s Hubble image notes explain that colors are assigned to observations taken through different filters. The result makes information in the data visible.
Also, October 29 is the release date, not the date all these observations happened. Hubble’s listed exposure date is January 15, 2026.
You can compare the official three-image collage here. Look for the turned head and bright eye first. Once you spot them, the nickname makes a lot more sense.
