years). When this happens, it will shine more brightly than a billion Suns and will be the brightest object in the sky after our Sun and Moon.
Near Eta Carinae is a small, compact nebula. Astronomers have determined that this shell of gas is moving outward at great speedsΓÇö200 to 700 kilometers per second. The gas was likely hurled out from Eta Carinae by a gigantic explosion, explaining its period of extreme brightness in the nineteenth century. The Argentine astronomer Enrique Gaviola dubbed this small nebula the Homonculus (ΓÇ£little manΓÇ¥) Nebula because it resembles a small, fat man with folded arms.
