Time after time

Time after time :

The Eta Carinae star system gives a front row seat to a stellar eruption that continues to expand at speeds up to 4.5 million miles per hour (7.2 million km per hour).⁣

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The "Great Eruption" seen on Earth in the 19th century produced a dense pair of spherical clouds on opposite sides of the system's two stars. Those clouds are now called the Homunculus Nebula.⁣

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This composite image and new video reveal important hints about Eta Carinae's volatile history. This includes the rapid expansion of the ring, and a previously-unknown faint shell of X-rays outside it.⁣

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Visual descriptions:⁣

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1. The Homunculus Nebula is clearly seen in this composite image. @NASAChandraXray data is depicted in orange, and optical light data from @NASAHubble is shown in blue, purple and white. The explosion is shaped like an hourglass, or peanut shell, with bulbous ends and a narrow middle. The shell is a translucent mauve color, streaked with purple veins. Inside, at the narrow middle, a brilliant white light gleams brightly. This is the same orientation as the orange ring of gas. That indicates that both structures have the same origin: the "Great Eruption," observed about 180 years ago.⁣

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2. This time lapse sequence of Chandra X-ray observations begins with an image from 1999. Here, a hazy, neon blue ball with a brilliant white core is encircled by a patchy, oblong, orange ring. The blue and white ball shows X-rays from two massive stars, 30 & 90 times the mass of our sun. These stars are too close together to be seen individually. The oblong orange gas ring encircling them is tilted, stretching toward our upper right and lower left.⁣

The video progresses with four images, with data from 2003, 2009, 2014, & 2020. As the images flit by, the neon blue ball expands, but the white core appears stable. The patches forming the orange ring of gas shift and swell, moving away from the stars inside the blue and white ball.⁣

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Credit: (X-ray) NASA/SAO/GSFC/M. Corcoran et al; (Visible) NASA/ESA/STScI; (Image Processing) NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare, J. Major, N. Wolk⁣

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                        29  September 2023