Key facts
- Category
- Stars
- Object class
- Luminous blue variable star
- Mass
- ~100 solar masses
- Host
- Eta Carinae system
- Scale fact
- 334 million kmdiameter
- Estimated age
- ~3 million years
- Composition
- Hydrogen and helium
- Temperature
- ~15,000–25,000 K surface
Eta Carinae A
334 million kmdiameter
Visual creditscaleofspace.org / CC BY-NC 4.0
Details
Eta Carinae A is the luminous blue variable primary in the Eta Carinae system, buried inside the Carina Nebula. Its dense wind makes the star’s surface hard to define, so this record uses an approximate visible stellar disk rather than a clean hydrostatic radius.
Eta Carinae A is a luminous blue variable of roughly 100 solar masses in a highly eccentric binary. During the nineteenth-century Great Eruption, the system expelled several solar masses of material that now form the bipolar Homunculus Nebula.
The primary still produces an exceptionally dense stellar wind. Because that outflow hides the underlying star and creates an extended apparent surface, the 334-million-kilometer diameter shown here is approximate rather than a sharply measured photospheric edge.
Links
- Editorial guides
- Universe journey
- Solar neighborhood
- Preset views
- Wikipedia
- Eta Carinae A on Wikipedia
Size neighbors
Objects near Eta Carinae A on the scale
On the logarithmic size axis, Eta Carinae A falls between Deneb and Betelgeuse. The band uses nearby Stars records.
Shared physical scale
1.51billion km
Sources
References for Eta Carinae A
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- Eta Carinae A — Wikipedia
- Visual: scaleofspace.org / CC BY-NC 4.0
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.