Astronomers discover secret star at the center of gorgeous Cat's Eye Nebula

When a star roughly the size of the sun approaches the end of its life, it expels its outer layer of gas into a bright and beautiful bubble known as a planetary nebula. At the center of each bubble, a weakened star continues irradiating its surroundings, sculpting the gas into colorful shapes that astronomers have likened to crabs, reptiles and terrifying screaming faces. One of the strangest and most baffling of these cosmic cloud paintings is the Cat's Eye Nebula, located about 3,000 light-years from Earth. Seemingly made of several overlapping bubbles of blue gas with long, streamer-like filaments wrapped tightly around them, the nebula has defied clear explanation for centuries.