About 8,000 years ago, a star in the region of the Big Dipper exploded. The star contracted down to a white dwarf star. The remnants of that explosion are still visible. It is known as M97 or the Owl Nebula. This is a planetary nebula. Planetary nebulas are quite common as this is part of the life cycle of many stars. The explosion would have destroyed any inner planets that were in the star system at the time. The appearance of the owl eyes is a result of an inner shell that is barrel shaped and at a 45-degree angle to us. The result appears as two rings that look like eyes. The outer shell is much larger than the inner shell and it appears as a sphere.
M97 is located just 2 degrees away from Merak. The two front stars of the bowl of the Big Dipper point to the North Star, Polaris. Merak is the bottom pointing star. To get two degrees from Merak, with your right hand at arm’s length, put your middle finger on Merak and your index finger will be very close to the area of M97.
M97 is about 2,000 light years away. That means about 6,000 years ago the explosion may have been visible with the naked eye. Now M97 is very faint at a magnitude of 9.9. Under very dark skies you may be able to see it with binoculars. However, in most areas, it will take a telescope to see it. The image will appear very fuzzy in most smaller telescopes. A good way to see it is with a camera attached to a telescope. The white dwarf central star is still visible.
