The Great Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) is the jewel of the Southern Hemisphere. This giant nebula is located between 6 500 and 10 000 light-years away, in the Sagittarius Arm of our Galaxy. It is one of the largest star-forming regions in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. It is also the brightest HII region (ionized hydrogen region) in the Milky Way. The absorbing cloud in the center of the nebula is the small dark nebula known as the "Keyhole". The Carina Nebula, although located very far from us, is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, but only from the southern hemisphere. These fantastic pillars of radiant dust and gas, studded with new stars, were mainly sculpted by the intense wind and radiation from the main star Eta Carinae. The 3D video shows us the gigantic clouds of dust and gas from the Carina.
nota: We call HII regions, regions made up of clouds mainly composed of hydrogen and of which most of the atoms are ionized and extending over several light-years. Ionization is produced by the proximity of one or more very hot stars, of spectral type O or B, which radiate strongly in the extreme ultraviolet, thus ionizing the surrounding gas, from which these stars were formed.
nota: Eta Carinae was in the 1830s one of the brightest stars in the sky, then faded dramatically. Eta Carinae could definitively explode in a supernova within the next thousand years. Its luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun and its estimated mass is about 100 to 150 solar masses. This star is one of the most massive stars discovered. Eta Carinae is near the Keyhole Nebula NGC 3324. |