Traveling to the constellation of Carina, we see a star called Eta Carinae, one hundred times more massive than our sun. This star became very unstable and had a tremendous explosion when, one hundred fifty years ago, it became one of the brightest naked-eye stars in the southern hemisphere.
In September 1995, J. Morse (University of Colorado) used the HST to image Eta Carinae. Huge “blobs” of gases are seen on each side, moving away from the center at speeds of 1.5 million miles (2.5 million kilometers) per hour. The central star, not visible in this image, radiates five million times more power than our sun!
In Figure 9, Eta Carinae is shown as a tactile outline. Gases are represented by broken curved lines.