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This is no idle threat in the case of the nebula called Eta Carina. Just three years ago the Hubble Space Telescope provided a dazzling image of a star that was blowing off massive quantities of material in a blast that looked like a supernova yet, mysteriously, wasn't one. Now the Chandra X-ray Observatory has looked at Eta Carina and showed details that are, well, shocking. Right: The earlier, well-known image of Eta Carina taken by the Hubble Space Telescope is scaled to show how it fits within the much larger X-ray nebula discovered by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Each of the lobes shown in the Hubble image is about the width of our entire solar system. Links to 1024x1024-pixel, 222KB JPG. Credit: Chandra Science Center and NASA. "It is not what I expected," said Dr. Fred Seward of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "I expected to see a strong point source with a little diffuse emission cloud around it. Instead, we see just the opposite- a bright cloud of diffuse emission, and much less radiation from the center." |
Left: Chandra has revealed unexpected structures around the nova at the center of Eta Carina. The colors are artificial to help the viewer sort out details and structure. Links to 512x512-pixel, 82KB JPG. Credit: Chandra Science Center and NASA. The new X-ray observation shows three distinct structures: an outer, horseshoe-shaped ring about 2 light years in diameter, a hot inner core about 3 light-months in diameter, and a hot central source less than 1 light-month in diameter which may contain the superstar that drives the whole show. The outer ring provides evidence of another large explosion that occurred over 1,000 years ago. All three structures are thought to represent shock waves produced by matter rushing away from the superstar at supersonic speeds. The temperature of the shock-heated gas ranges from 60 million deg Kelvin in the central regions to 3 million K on the outer structure. Eta Carinae is one of the most interesting and perplexing objects in the entire Milky Way. It was discovered, as a variable star, in 1677 by Sir Edmund Halley, then made its mark on modern astronomy during the "Great Eruption" of 1837-56. The star brightened to magnitude -1, second only to Sirius in brightness. It is also known as NGC 3372 and as the Homunculus Nebulae which sits inside the larger Keyhole Nebula. |
Right: Eta Carina as seen in infrared light. Links to 432x432-pixel, 79KB JPG. Credit: Elisha Polomski, U. Florida/CTIO. It dimmed until only telescopes could detect it - until 1940 when it started brightening again and became visible to the naked eye. Located about 10,000 light-years from Earth (some estimates are as low as 7,500 light-years), the star is more than 150 times as massive as our Sun, and emits energy at a rate 4 million times greater than the Sun (most of Eta Carinae's radiation is at infrared wavelengths from dust in the bipolar nebula). In 1996, Hubble was trained on the star and revealed a massive cloud resembling two balloons extending from either side of a pie plate. These are two spectacular bubbles of gas - each as wide as our entire solar system - expanding in opposite directions away from a central bright disk at speeds in excess of 600,000 km/h. The odd shape is believed to be partly due to the star's intense magnetic field channeling plasma. |
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Further Chandra observations of Eta Carina are planned for the near future and should give astronomers deeper insight into this cryptic colossus. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, manages the Chandra program. TRW, Inc., Redondo Beach, CA, is the prime contractor for the spacecraft. The Smithsonian's Chandra X-ray Center controls science and flight operations from Cambridge, MA. |
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