---
title: "Eta Carinae: facts, distance and size – Krillion Space"
description: "Eta Carinae is a pair of extremely massive, brilliant stars wrapped in a glowing cloud they blew out in a giant outburst in the 1840s. With sourced facts."
url: https://krilion.app/atlas/eta-carinae
language: en-US
---

# Eta Carinae

Hypergiant star. Depth 43 on the Krillion Space voyage, in the Milky Way.

Eta Carinae is a pair of extremely massive, brilliant stars wrapped in a glowing cloud they blew out in a giant outburst in the 1840s. It is the most luminous and massive star system within about 10,000 light-years of Earth, and astronomers still cannot fully explain what caused its great eruption.

![Eta Carinae at depth 43 in Krillion Space, from a Hubble photo (Jon Morse and NASA).](https://krilion.app/assets/atlas/eta-carinae.webp)

## Fact sheet

- **Type:** Massive binary star system
- **Distance:** About 7,500 light-years from Earth
- **Size:** Two stars of about 90 and 30 times the Sun's mass, inside a gas cloud about a light-year long
- **Constellation:** Carina
- **Position in the sky:** Right ascension 10h 45m, declination −59° 41′
- **Seeing it from Earth:** Today it is barely visible to the naked eye and lies far south in the sky (declination about -60 degrees), so it is best seen from the Southern Hemisphere.
- **On the voyage:** Depth 43, in the Milky Way section of the route, between Cygnus X-1 and Sagittarius A*

## Things to know

- Its two stars swing unusually close together every 5.5 years, coming within about 225 million km of each other. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasa-observatories-take-an-unprecedented-look-into-superstar-eta-carinae/))
- The larger star is roughly 90 times the Sun's mass and about 5 million times as luminous. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasa-observatories-take-an-unprecedented-look-into-superstar-eta-carinae/))
- During its 'Great Eruption' in the 1840s, Eta Carinae became the second-brightest star in the sky for more than a decade before fading from naked-eye view. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-captures-the-galaxys-biggest-ongoing-stellar-fireworks-show/))
- That outburst built the two-lobed Homunculus Nebula, now about a light-year long and holding enough material to make at least ten Suns. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasa-observatories-take-an-unprecedented-look-into-superstar-eta-carinae/))
- Astronomers have caught light from the Great Eruption only now reaching Earth after bouncing off distant dust, letting them study the outburst about 170 years after it was first seen. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/astronomers-watch-delayed-broadcast-of-a-powerful-stellar-eruption/))

## Sources

- [NASA – NASA Observatories Take an Unprecedented Look into Superstar Eta Carinae](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasa-observatories-take-an-unprecedented-look-into-superstar-eta-carinae/)
- [NASA – Hubble Captures the Galaxy's Biggest Ongoing Stellar Fireworks Show](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-captures-the-galaxys-biggest-ongoing-stellar-fireworks-show/)
- [Chandra – Eta Carinae (2023)](https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2023/etacar/)
- [NASA – Astronomers Watch Delayed Broadcast of a Powerful Stellar Eruption](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/astronomers-watch-delayed-broadcast-of-a-powerful-stellar-eruption/)

## On the route

- Previous landmark: [Cygnus X-1](https://krilion.app/atlas/cygnus-x1)
- Next landmark: [Sagittarius A*](https://krilion.app/atlas/sagittarius-a)
- [The whole Star Atlas](https://krilion.app/atlas)
- [Fly the voyage yourself](https://krilion.app/d/): every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.