Pair of giant stars with a nebula
Eta Carinae
One of the most massive stars in the Milky Way – around 100 times as heavy as the Sun. It could explode as a supernova at any time.
Key figures
- Distance
- about 7,500 light-years
- Mass
- about 100 Suns (main star)
- Luminosity
- about 5 million Suns
- Great Eruption
- 1843
Interesting facts
- In 1843 Eta Carinae became the second-brightest star in the whole sky for a few years. In the process it hurled out the two clouds of gas you can see in the picture.
- It is considered a hot candidate for the next supernova in our galaxy – although it cannot be seen from Switzerland, as it lies too far south.
A star at the limit
Eta Carinae is so heavy and bright that its own light almost pushes it apart. Stars like this live for only a few million years – the Sun, by contrast, for about 10 billion.
Where is it?
Eta Carinae belongs to the “The Milky Way” level of the Cosmic Zoom (field of view about 130,000 light-years). Our galaxy: a spiral of 100 to 400 billion stars. The Sun lies in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light-years from the centre. All the neighbouring stars from the previous level are inside the tiny dot at “Sun”.
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