C a l i c o ?

ALT Visible-light image of the Cat’s Head Nebula by the Hubble Space Telescope. A dark brown, opaque filament of dust is in the center, stretching from the bottom to almost the very top. It has a narrow, irregular shape that resembles a cat sitting with its back toward the viewer and a tail extending downward. The cat’s head is turned toward the right, revealing a red glowing eye. A bright red spot marks the eye. The top half of the background is bright blue. Approximately halfway down, cutting diagonally across the frame, the background colour changes from blue to yellow, orange, and finally red near the bottom. The image is dotted with many small stars. Some larger stars with the telescope’s characteristic four-point diffraction spikes are scattered in the background and foreground.

ALT Near-infrared image of the Cat’s Head Nebula by the James Webb Space Telescope. An orange-brown filament of dust is in the center, stretching from the bottom to almost the very top. It has a narrow, irregular shape that resembles a cat sitting with its back toward the viewer and a tail extending downward. The tail ends at the lower one-third of the image and widens to a squarish dust cloud. The cat’s head is turned toward the right, revealing a yellow glowing eye. The background is mostly blue, with the top right corner revealing the black background of space. On the cat’s left are ghostly filaments of dust. Scattered throughout the view are many yellow and blue stars, some with Webb’s signature eight-point diffraction spikes, and a few faint background galaxies