The Homunculus Nebula is the dusty bipolar cloud thrown off by Eta Carinae in its Great Eruption, two expanding lobes around one of the most massive stars known.
At a glance
| type | nebula |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 7,500 light-years (2.3 kpc) |
| its light left it | 7,500 years ago |
| size in the piece | about 0.78 light-years acrossmodel |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with. Model marks a property of the piece’s galaxy model rather than a measurement.
About Homunculus Nebula
In its Great Eruption, Eta Carinae brightened until it briefly ranked among the brightest stars in the sky, then faded. During that outburst it ejected a huge mass of gas, which has since cooled into dust and expanded into two lobes on either side of the star, pinched at a dusty waist. Enrique Gaviola gave it its name because in early photographs it looked like a little man.
The nebula shines mostly by reflection: its dust scatters the light of the star inside. Hubble images show the lobes in detail, and measurements of their expansion trace them back to the eruption. Eta Carinae is now known to be a binary of two massive stars, and the nebula is one of the best records we have of how the heaviest stars shed their mass before they die.
What you see in the piece
In the piece it is a small dusty cloud lit by reflected starlight around Eta Carinae, deep inside the Carina Nebula. It only separates from the star’s glare when you fly close.
Measured or modelled
What triggered the Great Eruption, a merger, an interaction in the binary or an instability in the star, is still debated.
Questions
What is the Homunculus Nebula?
It is the cloud of gas and dust thrown off by Eta Carinae during its Great Eruption, now expanding in two lobes around the star.
How far away is the Homunculus Nebula?
The Homunculus Nebula is 7,500 light-years (2.3 kpc) from the Sun, with Eta Carinae at its centre.