These images reveal light from a massive stellar outburst in the Carina Nebula reflecting off dust clouds surrounding a behemoth double-star system.
The color image at left shows the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region located 7,500 light-years from Earth. The massive double-star system Eta Carinae resides near the top of the image. The star system, about 120 times more massive than the Sun, produced a spectacular outburst that was seen on Earth from 1837 to 1858.
But some of the light from the eruption took an indirect path and is just now reaching our planet. The light bounced off dust clouds (the boxed region about 100 light-years away at the bottom of the image) and was rerouted to Earth, a phenomenon called a light echo. The image was taken in February 2000 by the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Curtis Schmidt Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile.
The three black-and-white images at right show light from the eruption illuminating dust clouds near the doomed star system as it moves through them. The effect is like shining a flashlight on different regions of a vast cavern. The images were taken over an eight-year span by the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Blanco 4-meter telescope at the CTIO.
Credits
NASA, NOAO, and A. Rest (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.);Acknowledgment: NOAO, AURA, NSF, and N. Smith (University of Arizona)
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Carina Nebula |
| Object Description | Carina Nebula and Light Echo Caused by the Massive/Variable Star Eta Car |
| R.A. Position | 10h 44m 12s.127 |
| Dec. Position | -60° 16' 01".69 |
| Constellation | Carina |
| Distance | 7,500 light-years (2,300 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The science team studying the Eta Car light echo was led by A. Rest (STScI). The color image (left) of a portion of the Carina Nebula was taken with the CTIO Curtis Schmidt telescope on February 25, 2000. The filter and color assignments are as follows: oxygen (blue), hydrogen (green), and sulfur (red). The single-filter images of the light echo (below right) were taken in 2003, 2010, and 2011 with the CTIO 4-m Blanco telescope. |
| Instrument | CTIO Curtis Schmidt telescope (color image), and CTIO 4-m Blanco telescope (grayscale images) |
| Exposure Dates | February 25, 2000 (color image), and March 10, 2003, May 10, 2010 and February 6, 2011 (grayscale images) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | Blue: oxygen Green: hydrogen Red: sulfur |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
