The Star That Outshone The Sky

Eta Carinae is a stellar monster over five million times brighter than the Sun. In the 1840s, it staged a mysterious explosion that briefly made it the second brightest star in the entire night sky.

This massive system is currently on the verge of a potential supernova. During its Great Eruption, it violently shed enough material to create two massive gas clouds known as the Homunculus Nebula. Scientists continue to track its unpredictable changes in brightness to understand how the most massive stars in our galaxy finally die. It is a cosmic ticking time bomb located 7,500 light-years away from Earth.