Chandra Release - September 26, 2023

Visual Description: Eta Carinae

This release features composite images and a time-lapse movie of a cosmic explosion that sky watchers have been observing since the middle of the 19th century. About 180 years ago, a huge explosion inside the Eta Carinae star system ejected massive amounts of material in an event dubbed the "Great Eruption". The resulting gas and debris cloud has been expanding ever since. 

The time lapse sequence of Chandra 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 and 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 time lapse movie progresses with four similar images, containing data from 2003, 2009, 2014, and 2020. As the images flit by, one after the other, 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.

An additional composite image features optical and X-ray observations of the explosion, inside the expanding orange ring of gas. Here, 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. The peanut shell shape is tilted, with one bulbous end pointing away from us, toward our upper right, and the other pointing toward us, down to our lower left. 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.