Eta Carinae
This "almost true-color" image shows material surrounding the star Eta
Carinae obtained with the second-generation Wide Field and Planetary
Camera installed in the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1993. One of
the best-studied objects in the sky Eta Carinae has a mass about 150
times that of our sun and is about 4 million times brighter than the
sun. Eta Carinae is highly unstable and prone to violent outbursts; the
last of these occurred in 1841, when despite its distance Eta Carinae
briefly became the second brightest star in the sky. Since then the
star has grown more than 600 times fainter in visible light, so that
today it is only barely visible to the naked eye. The clear view
provided by WFPC-II allows study of the expanding shell of material
surrounding the star.
![[Picture]](../Pics/etacar_wfpc06.gif)
This image is a combination of three different frames taken in
red, green and blue light. The ghostly red outer glow
surrounding the star is composed of the very fastest moing
material ejected during the 1841 outburst. The bright blue-white
nebulosity closer in to the star also consists of ejected stellar
material.
Back to additional information about Eta Car
Back to constellation Carina