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The Great Nebula of Carina (NGC 3372) is an active region of star formation, about three million years old and roughly 8000 light years away in the southern sky (10:43.8 R.A., -59° 52' Dec.):
The Great Nebula of Carina has an unusually large number of massive stars, and it includes the Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324), a mostly dark nebula blocking the light from the larger bright nebula behind it (sometimes the name "Keyhole Nebula" is also used to designate the Great Nebula itself, or at least the brightest portion shown below). Just to the left of the Keyhole is the luminous supergiant Eta Carinae, dimmed by its surrounding bright yellowish ejecta:
This image was captured in 1976 by the 4-meter Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in northern Chile. Copyright 1976 National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.This image is used with permission. Another striking image of the Great Nebula of Carina, showing how truly extensive it is, was obtained by K.Weis and W. J. Duschl using the Curtis-Schmidt Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory:
Copyright National Optical Astronomy Observatories, which are operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. This image is used with permission. In the infrared, Eta Carina is quite visible, but the Keyhole Nebula no longer stands out:
This image mosaic was obtained as part of the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey, a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. The image was tilted about 20° from the original to orient it with the previous images. A close-up, false-color image of the north ("round") end of the Keyhole Nebula reveals extensive detail of this dark nebula, shaped by stellar winds from nearby young stars:
This image was produced by the Hubble Heritage Project and was obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The Hubble Space Telescope is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., from National Aeronautics and Space Administration contract NAS5-26555. The image was rotated 180° from the original to orient it with the previous images. Adjacent to the Keyhole Nebula, the massive supergiant star Eta Carinae is adding its own material to the nebula as it nears the end of its brief life:
This image was obtained by J. Morse (U. Colorado), K. Davidson (U. Minnesota), et al., using the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. It was processed to enhance the visibility of its structure, and so is not "natural color". The Hubble Space Telescope is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., from National Aeronautics and Space Administration contract NAS5-26555. In the x-ray, Eta Carinae is seen to be surrounded by a circumstellar ring of shocked gas and dust, with a diameter of about two light years:
This image was obtained by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. |
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The star chart background and Carina constellation image were produced on a Macintosh with the Voyager II program, and are ©1988-93 Carina Software, 830 Williams St., San Leandro, CA 94577, (510) 352-7328. Used under license.
©1996-2002 Scott R. Anderson Last update: 2002 February 3 Please send questions, comments, suggestions, or corrections to srca@mindspring.com. The material on this website may be reused as described under the Open Course License.
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