Image: Carina Nebula

Description: This broad panorama of the Carina Nebula, a region of massive star formation in the southern skies, was taken in infrared light using the HAWK-I camera on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Many previously hidden features, scattered across a spectacular celestial landscape of gas, dust and young stars, have emerged. Some of these features have been annotated in Commons. Trumpler 16 (annotated) is an open cluster that contains the luminous, massive blue variable Eta Carinae, one of the brightest stars in the galaxy, possibly as much as 120 times the mass of the Sun, and emitting the light of 4,000,000 Suns. Eta Carinae is nearing the end of its life, and is surrounded by a huge nebula, cast off by numerous eruptions of the star over the last several centuries; it is expected to explode into a supernova at any time. Trumpler 14 (annotated) contains the huge double star HD 93129 A/B. The young O3 class star HD 93129 A is one of the brightest stars in the galaxy that is still on the main sequence, and with a luminosity equivalent to 3,000,000 Suns, is very nearly as bright as Eta Carinae, but this is not obvious in the photo due to obscuring nebulosities.
Title: Carina Nebula
Credit: http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1208a/
Author: ESO/T. Preibisch
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
License: CC BY 4.0
License Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Attribution Required?: Yes