Carina Nebula – Astronomy Now

A “gem” of a young star cluster shines in Carina

16 March 2021 Astronomy Now

A beautiful star cluster in Carina, known as the Gem, was first observed in 1757. The young, 10-million-year-old cluster is seen here in all its glory courtesy of ESO’s 2.2-metre MPG telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Stunning new view of the Carina Nebula shows power of adaptive optics

5 October 2020 Astronomy Now

An infrared adaptive optics system gives Gemini South telescope a remarkably clear view of the Carina Nebula, providing a wealth of never-before-seen detail.

VISTA captures huge Carina Nebula in all its infrared glory

29 August 2018 Astronomy Now

The European Observatory’s VISTA telescope captured this remarkably detailed view of the spectacular Carina Nebula, showing the vast star-forming region in infrared light with countless suns blazing through thin clouds of gas and dust, including the gigantic Eta Carinae binary system.

Surprise! When a brown dwarf is actually a planetary mass object

9 May 2017 Astronomy Now

Sometimes a brown dwarf is actually a planet — or planet-like anyway. A team of scientists in the United States and Canada have discovered that what astronomers had previously thought was one of the closest brown dwarfs to our own Sun is in fact a planetary mass object.

‘Pillars of destruction’ in the Carina Nebula

2 November 2016 Astronomy Now

Spectacular new observations of vast pillar-like structures within the Carina Nebula have been made using the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The different pillars analysed by an international team seem to be pillars of destruction — in contrast to the name of the iconic Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, which are of similar nature.

Eta Carinae star system revealed in unprecedented detail

19 October 2016 Astronomy Now

An international team of astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope Interferometer to image the Eta Carinae star system in the greatest detail ever achieved. They found new and unexpected structures within the binary system, including in the area between the two stars where extremely high velocity stellar winds are colliding.

The supernova that wasn’t: a tale of three cosmic eruptions

4 September 2016 Astronomy Now

Combining images taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope over more than 20 years, a team of researchers has discovered that Eta Carinae, a very massive star system that has puzzled astronomers since it erupted in a supernova-like event in the mid-19th century, has a past that’s much more violent than they thought.

Hubble captures star cluster’s dazzling diamonds

21 January 2016 Astronomy Now

Some of the Milky Way’s “celebrity stars” — opulent, attention-getting, and short-lived — can be found in this Hubble Space Telescope image of the glittering star cluster called Trumpler 14. It is only 500,000 years old, has one of the highest concentrations of massive, luminous stars in the entire Galaxy and is located 8,000 light-years away in the Carina Nebula.

Celebrating Hubble: Mystic Mountain

5 April 2015 Astronomy Now

Looking like a Tolkienesque painting by John Howe or Alan Lee, this pillar of dust in the Carina Nebula (called the Mystic Mountain) is being assaulted from without and within.