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Image of the material surrounding the supermassive star Eta Carinae, taken by the WFPC-2 on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Eta Carinae has a mass of approximately 150 times that of (and is about 4 million times brighter than) the Sun, making it one of the most massive and most luminous stars known. It is also highly unstable, and prone to violent outbursts. The last of these occurred in 1841, when despite its distance away of over 10, 000 light years it briefly became the second brightest star in the sky. This photo is a combination of three different images taken in red, green, and blue light. The ghostly red outer glow surrounding the star is composed of the very fastest moving of the material which was ejected during the last century's outburst, much of which is moving more than two million miles per hour, and is largely composed of nitrogen and other elements formed in the interior of the massive stir and subsequently ejected into interstellar space. The bright blue-white nebulosity closer in to the star also consists of ejected stellar material, but is much dustier and reflects starlight. Release date: June 10, 1996.
