Space Snapshot

The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope captured this wide-field view of a region of space in the constellation Draco. It captures stars, galaxies, and, at the center, the Cat’s Eye Nebula. Also known as NGC 6543, this is a dying star throwing off expanding layers of gas. Euclid’s wide view captured a halo of colorful fragments of gas surrounding the nebula, likely ejected from the star at an earlier stage before the main nebula at the center formed. Read on to see the Hubble Space Telescope’s close-up of this beautiful cosmic phenomenon. Image credit: ESA et al.

Fact Worth Sharing

The Cat’s Eye Nebula is a planetary nebula, but it definitely isn’t a planet. These nebulae get their name from their round shape, making them look like planets when viewed through early telescopes.

Mission Briefings

Action Alert

Congress has started working on NASA’s budget for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1, 2026. Each year, lawmakers decide how much money federal agencies like NASA will receive.

The leaders of the bipartisan Planetary Science Caucus are circulating a letter urging swift and decisive action by Congress to build on the bipartisan support demonstrated in FY 2026 by allocating $9 billion to NASA's Science Mission Directorate, ensuring the stability needed to sustain the nation's highest-priority science missions. Encourage your representative to join that letter today.

Want to go a step further in your advocacy? Watch this recording of The Planetary Society's Space Policy and Advocacy team detailing the budget process and how you can get involved.

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What's Up

Very bright Jupiter is up high in the east when the Sun sets, more than twice as bright as Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, which is not too far in the sky from Jupiter. Yellowish Saturn and super-bright Venus are visible very low in the west in the early evening. Learn more in our guide to March’s night skies.

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Wow of the Week

Here you see Hubble’s close-up of the Cat’s Eye Nebula, also known as NGC 6543. By observing this object with both Hubble and Euclid, astronomers can observe the full complexity of its structure and gain insights into stellar death — a kind of cosmic “fossil record” of a star’s final evolutionary stages. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Z. Tsvetanov.

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