The Cat's Head nebula gets its name from its appearance: it looks like a cat sitting so that it's facing away from the viewer, with its head turned around on the top of its neck, highlighted by a star that looks like a glowing eye. The unusual shape is made of gas and dust carved and formed by the radiation of young stars.

It's a small part of the larger Carina Nebula , a complex star-forming region about 7,500 light years away. Recently, both the Hubble and the JWST cast their gaze on the Cat's Head in an effort to learn more about star formation, a constant research subject in astronomy.

The Carina Nebula hosts some of the most massive stars in the entire Milky Way in its Carina OB1 assocation. Of particular interest is Eta Carinae, a stellar system that hosts many stars, two of which have a combined luminosity more than 5 million times greater than the Sun. Eta Carinae is also known for being at the heart of the eerily creepy Homunculous Nebula , not visible in these images.…