Carina Nebula Close Up

A jewel of the southern sky, the Nebula Great Carina Nebula, also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our Galaxy’s largest star forming regions.

Like the smaller, more northerly Nebula Great Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula is easily visible to the unaided eye, though at a distance of 7,500 light-years it is some 5 times farther away.

This gorgeous telescopic close-up reveals remarkable details of the region’s central glowing filaments of interstellar gas and obscuring Cosmic Dust clouds in a field of view nearly 20 light-years across.

The Carina Nebula is home to young, extremely massive stars, including the still enigmatic and violently variable Eta Carinae, a star system with well over 100 times the mass of the Sun.

In the processed composite of space and ground-based image data a dusty, two-lobed Homunculus Nebula appears to surround Eta Carinae itself just below and left of center.

While Eta Carinae is likely on the verge of a Supernova explosion, X-ray images indicate that the Great Carina Nebula has been a veritable supernova factory.