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30th July 2012

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Eta Carinae Astronomers have been puzzling over the engine behind the historical 1843 outburst of Eta Carinae since it happened, but new observations with the Gemini South and the Blanco telescopes in Chile add a startling new clue. The new observations reveal faint but extremely fast material indicative of a powerful shock wave produced by the 1843 event, suggesting that its driving mechanism was an explosion rather than a steady wind. The research, led by Nathan Smith of the University of California, Berkeley, shows that the famous nebulosity around the star Eta Carinae contains extremely fast-moving filaments of material that had not been seen before, and are not explained by current theories.

Eta Carinae
Astronomers have been puzzling over the engine behind the historical 1843 outburst of Eta Carinae since it happened, but new observations with the Gemini South and the Blanco telescopes in Chile add a startling new clue. The new observations reveal faint but extremely fast material indicative of a powerful shock wave produced by the 1843 event, suggesting that its driving mechanism was an explosion rather than a steady wind. The research, led by Nathan Smith of the University of California, Berkeley, shows that the famous nebulosity around the star Eta Carinae contains extremely fast-moving filaments of material that had not been seen before, and are not explained by current theories.

Tagged: eta carinaeAstronomyscience

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