Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2003 November 26 
Posted on 11/26/2003 6:07:33 AM PST by petuniasevan
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2003 November 26
Explanation: How do violent stars affect their surroundings? To help find out, astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope to the regions surrounding Eta Carina, a star showing signs that it may explode sometime in the next million years. The nearby nebulosity, shown above, is home to streams of hot gas, pools of cool gas, knots of dark globules, and pillars of dense dusty interstellar matter likely forming young stars. The above image explores about three light-years, a region size intermediate to the Eta Carina cocoon, which spans only about one-half of a light year, and the Great Nebula in Carina, which spans over 300 light years. In April of 1843 Eta Car briefly became second only to Sirius as the brightest star in planet Earth's night sky, even though at a distance of about 7,500 light-years, it is about 800 times farther away.
Below is the famous Hubble image of the star Eta Carinae itself:
And below is the Chandra X-ray image of Eta.
Eta Carinae
Southern observers - watch this star!
| Right Ascension | 10 : 45.1 (h : m) |
|---|---|
| Declination | -59 : 41 (deg : m) |
| Distance | 10.0 (kly) |
| Visual Brightness | 6.21 (mag) [-0.8 .. 7.9, var] |
| Apparent Dimension | ?? (arc min) |
The vast majority of observers in the USA are too far north to see Eta Car. If you are at the latitude of Miami Florida, look for its associated nebula about 4 degrees above the southern horizon at midnight in early March. In Hawaii, that increases to 9 degrees.
Eta Carinae seems to be unique in another fashion - its nebulae seem to be focusing UV radiation as natural lasers! Below is an artist's concept of the phenomenon (dandy wallpaper!)
If you want to keep up on Eta Carinae's latest outbursts and other assorted antics, you can bookmark THIS PAGE. Be advised that the language is rarified/technical.
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