Fact Sheet
Eta Carinae
Eta Carinae, the Milky Way's most massive star, is blowing itself apart in a series of powerful explosions. The star, which lies 8,000 light-years away, is about 100 times as massive as the Sun. In 1837, it flared to hundreds of times its normal brightness when it expelled about two percent of its total mass -- enough to form two Suns. In this true-color Hubble Space Telescope photo, Eta Carinae looks like a cosmic peanut, with two giant blobs of hot gas racing away from the star at 1.5 million miles per hour. A thin disk of gas extends outward from the peanut’s middle like a lacy tutu. Because Eta Carinae is so massive, it consumes its nuclear fuel at a staggering rate, so it won’t live long. The star is only about three million years old, compared with the Sun’s age of about 4.5 billion years. Someday, Eta Carinae will become a supernova, blasting itself into cosmic dust.
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