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Monster Media 1996 #15
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Monster Media Number 15 (Monster Media)(July 1996).ISO
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96-23B.TXT
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1996-06-10
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FOR RELEASE: June 10, 1996
PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC96-23b
HUBBLE SHOWS EXPANSION OF ETA CARINAE DEBRIS
The furious expansion of a huge, billowing pair of gas and dust clouds are
captured in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope comparison image of the
supermassive star Eta Carinae.
To create the picture, astronomers aligned and subtracted two images of Eta
Carinae taken 17 months apart (April 1994, September 1995). Black represents
where the material was located in the older image, and white represents the
more recent location.
(The light and dark streaks that make an 'X' pattern are instrumental
artifacts caused by the extreme brightness of the central star. The bright
white region at the center of the image results from the star and its
immediate surroundings being 'saturated' in one of the images.)
This difference image shows that material closer into the star (which is the
bright blob at the image's center) is blasting into space more quickly than
material farther from the star.
This picture is remarkable because most celestial objects barely change
noticeably over a span of many years. Eta Carinae is a dramatic exception
because it underwent a titanic explosion 150 years ago. The twin lobes show
white outer edges as the ejected material expands into space at 1.5 million
miles per hour.
For the first time, astronomers can track the motions of hundreds of
small-scale structures in the lobes which will allow them to characterize
precisely how the lobes are evolving. The new data may give clues as to how
the lobes formed in the first place, and shed light on the bipolar phenomenon
in general. The images were taken in violet light with Hubble's Wide Field
Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The star is more than 8,000 light-years away in
the southern constellation Carina.
Photo Credit: Jon Morse (University of Colorado), Kris Davidson (University of
Minnesota), and NASA
Image files in GIF and JPEG format and captions may be accessed on Internet
via anonymous ftp from ftp.stsci.edu in /pubinfo.
GIF JPEG
PRC96-23b Eta Carinae diff. gif/EtaCarD.gif jpeg/EtaCarD.jpg
Higher resolution digital versions (300dpi JPEG) of the release photographs
will be available temporarily in /pubinfo/hrtemp: 96-23bbw.jpg (black/white)
GIF and JPEG images, captions and press release text are available via
World Wide Web at:
http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/23.html and via links in:
http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html or
http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html.