Eta Carinae

Eta Carinae is a stellar system containing at least two stars with a combined luminosity greater than five million times that of the Sun. The two main stars have an eccentric orbit with a period of 5. 54 years. The system is heavily obscured by the Homunculus Nebula, material ejected from the primary during the Great Eruption. The weak Eta Carinids meteor shower has a radiant very close to Eta carinae.

About Eta Carinae in brief

Eta Carinae is a stellar system containing at least two stars with a combined luminosity greater than five million times that of the Sun. It is located around 7,500 light-years distant in the constellation Carina. The two main stars have an eccentric orbit with a period of 5. 54 years. The system is heavily obscured by the Homunculus Nebula, material ejected from the primary during the Great Eruption. Although unrelated to the star and nebula, the weak Eta Carinids meteor shower has a radiant very close to Eta carinae. It was first recorded as a fourth-magnitude star in the 16th or 17th centuries. The star was also known by the Bayer designations Eta Roboris Caroli, Eta Argus or Eta Navis. It has the names Tseen Tseen, Sheaven’s altar and Foramen’s altar, and is also known as 海嵷… It is circumpolar from locations on Earth south of latitude 30°S, ; and is not visible north of about 30°N,. It was mapped when the Southern Asterisms were created at the start of the 17th century. Together with λ Carina,  Eta cae, Eta Carinae, and  λ Muscae forms the asterism  Tseen Cae, Sheaven and Foramen (Sheaven’s  altar and Foramen’s altar (Heaven of the Heavens) Etacarinae has an approximate apparent magnitude of 4.5 on the modern scale, which has been calculated as magnitude 3 on the 3 to 3.5 scale.

It became brighter than magnitude 4. 5 by 2014, becoming visible to the naked eye for the first time in about 40 years. It brightened in 1837 to become brighter than Rigel, marking the beginning of its so-called ‘Great Eruption’ It became the second-brightest star in. the sky between 11 and 14 March 1843 before fading well below naked eye visibility after 1856. In a smaller eruption, it reached 6th magnitude in 1892 before fading again. The primary is a peculiar star, similar to a luminous blue variable, that was initially 150–250 M☉ of which it has lost at least 30 M☉ already, and is expected to explode as a supernova in the astronomically near future. The secondary star is hot and also highly luminous, probably of spectral class O, around 30–80 times as massive as the Sun, and it is the only star known to produce ultraviolet laser emission. It’s a member of the Trumpler 16 open cluster within the much larger Carina Nebula. The stars of Argo Navis were finally given the epithets of the daughter constellations in the Uranometria of Gould in 1879.

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