Carina Nebula
What is Carina Nebula?
Nebulae· Distance 7,500 ly. Four times bigger and brighter than the Orion Nebula, but hidden from the north by its southern location. Inside lurks Eta Carinae, a supergiant on the brink of exploding. Switch the Sky view to a southern city to find it near the Southern Cross.
📍 Visible from where you are right now — computed in your browser
bearing · altitude · rise time · best time tonight
Where Carina Nebula is in your sky right now: https://nowsky.org/solar/sky?sel=carina nebula — location and time set automatically, no login.
Its place in the sky
A nebula, in the direction of Carina, spanning about 120 arcminutes of sky — 3.9 times the width of the full Moon.
Distance and scale
| Distance | ~7,500 ly |
|---|---|
| Size | ~300 ly across |
| Type | emission nebula |
| Constellation | Carina |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
Discovery and name
Four times the Orion Nebula but less famous for being southern. JWST's "Cosmic Cliffs" debut image is here.
Frequently asked
- How far is Carina Nebula from Earth?
- ~7,500 ly.
- What kind of object is Carina Nebula?
- emission nebula.
- Where in the sky is Carina Nebula?
- In the direction of Carina.
- Where is Carina Nebula in the sky right now?
- Open the sky view for your location and time and it shows the position in the sky right now.
The Great Eruption of 1843, when it was the second-brightest star in the sky
In March 1843 the star Eta Carinae, inside the Carina Nebula, suddenly brightened to become the second-brightest star in the sky after Sirius. It looked like a supernova but the star survived; in this "Great Eruption" ten to twenty solar masses of material were flung out at hundreds of kilometres a second. That debris is the hourglass-shaped Homunculus Nebula now wrapped around the star, which afterwards faded behind its own dust to 8th magnitude and is now recovering, at 4th.
The cause of the eruption is unsettled. Eta Carinae is a binary of stars of about 100 and 30 solar masses circling every 5.5 years, and the leading idea links the outburst to the clash of their winds at periastron. In the 2010s "light echoes" — light from the eruption reflected off nearby dust clouds and reaching Earth 170 years late — were observed, allowing the spectrum of the event to be read today. A candidate to become a supernova within tens of thousands of years, it is the most closely watched star in the southern sky.
The nebula in depth
The Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) is one of the largest star-forming regions in our galaxy, some 300 light-years across. At 1st magnitude it shows to the naked eye as a bright patch in the Milky Way, yet at declination −60° it never rises for observers in Korea, Europe or the continental United States. For southern observers it outshines the Orion Nebula.
Its star is Eta Carinae. Weighing more than 100 Suns, it flared in the Great Eruption of 1843 to become briefly the second-brightest star in the sky, and the material it threw off survives as the peanut-shaped Homunculus Nebula. Astronomers expect it to explode as a supernova within a few thousand years. The "Cosmic Cliffs" in the first James Webb release of 2022 are part of this nebula.
In the Sky view, set your location to Sydney or Cape Town and look west of the Southern Cross. It rides highest on southern autumn evenings (March to May). Binoculars alone show the dark dust lane that splits the nebula; a telescope reveals the Keyhole dark nebula and the orange glow of Eta Carinae.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.