The furious expansion of a huge, billowing pair of gas and dust clouds are captured in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope comparison image of the supermassive star Eta Carinae.
To create the picture, astronomers aligned and subtracted two images of Eta Carinae taken 17 months apart (April 1994, September 1995). Black represents where the material was located in the older image, and white represents the more recent location.
(The light and dark streaks that make an 'X' pattern are instrumental artifacts caused by the extreme brightness of the central star. The bright white region at the center of the image results from the star and its immediate surroundings being 'saturated' in one of the images.)
This difference image shows that material closer into the star (which is the bright blob at the image's center) is blasting into space more quickly than material farther from the star.
This picture is remarkable because most celestial objects barely change noticeably over a span of many years. Eta Carinae is a dramatic exception because it underwent a titanic explosion 150 years ago. The twin lobes show white outer edges as the ejected material expands into space at 1.5 million miles per hour.
For the first time, astronomers can track the motions of hundreds of small-scale structures in the lobes which will allow them to characterize precisely how the lobes are evolving. The new data may give clues as to how the lobes formed in the first place, and shed light on the bipolar phenomenon in general. The images were taken in violet light with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The star is more than 8,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina.
Credits
Jon Morse (University of Colorado), Kris Davidson (University of Minnesota), and NASA| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Eta Carinae |
| Object Description | Planetary Nebula |
| R.A. Position | 10h 45m 3.59s |
| Dec. Position | -59° 41' 4.26" |
| Constellation | Carina |
| Distance | 10,000 light-years (3,100 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Instrument | HST>WFPC |
| Exposure Dates | April 1994, September 1995 |
| 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. |
