Giant Star of Rare Brilliance in Our Sky
Grant Christie
New Zealand Herald, NZ
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Buried deep within a rich region of the southern Milky Way lies a monster star of intense interest to astronomers.
Known as Eta Carinae, it first blazed to prominence in the early 1840s when it brightened to become the second brightest star in the sky, outshining even the brilliant Canopus. Over the period when the Treaty of Waitangi was being signed, Eta Carinae transformed the whole look of the southern sky. After 1850, this enigmatic star faded steadily and eventually fell below naked-eye visibility.
When I began observational astronomy in 1967, Eta Carinae was easily seen with binoculars but has since been steadily brightening until today, when it can again be glimpsed by the unaided eye. In the early 1990s, the Hubble space telescope obtained stunning images that showed Eta Carinae was embedded inside a dense dumbbell-shaped shell of gas and dust, blocking our direct view of the star.
It is 7500 light years away and so luminous that it produces as much light in six seconds as our sun produces in a year. It may well be the most massive in our galaxy, perhaps 100 times the mass of our sun, which is close to the maximum mass any single star can have.
Nov 02, 2005
Grant Christie
New Zealand Herald, NZ
__________________
Buried deep within a rich region of the southern Milky Way lies a monster star of intense interest to astronomers.
Known as Eta Carinae, it first blazed to prominence in the early 1840s when it brightened to become the second brightest star in the sky, outshining even the brilliant Canopus. Over the period when the Treaty of Waitangi was being signed, Eta Carinae transformed the whole look of the southern sky. After 1850, this enigmatic star faded steadily and eventually fell below naked-eye visibility.
When I began observational astronomy in 1967, Eta Carinae was easily seen with binoculars but has since been steadily brightening until today, when it can again be glimpsed by the unaided eye. In the early 1990s, the Hubble space telescope obtained stunning images that showed Eta Carinae was embedded inside a dense dumbbell-shaped shell of gas and dust, blocking our direct view of the star.
It is 7500 light years away and so luminous that it produces as much light in six seconds as our sun produces in a year. It may well be the most massive in our galaxy, perhaps 100 times the mass of our sun, which is close to the maximum mass any single star can have.
Nov 02, 2005
