* Astronomy

This zoom into the Carina Nebula starts from a photograph from the Akira Fujii collection then transitions to a Digitised Sky Survey image. A picture taken by amateur astronomer Brad Moore in Australia precedes a final image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Panning across this star-forming region, dramatic dark towers of cool gas and dust are seen rising above a glowing wall of gas. The high-energy radiation blazing out from the hot, young stars in NGC 3324 is sculpting the wall of the nebula by slowly eroding it away.

The landmark 10th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's Hubble Heritage Project is being celebrated with a 'landscape' image from the cosmos. Cutting across a nearby star-forming region, called NGC 3324, are the "hills and valleys" of gas and dust displayed in intricate detail. Set amid a backdrop of soft, glowing blue light are wispy tendrils of gas as well as dark trunks of dust that are light-years in height. NGC 3324 is located in the constellation Carina, about 7,200 light-years away from Earth.

Source

Title: Superluminous supernovae: No threat from Eta Carinae
Authors: Brian C. Thomas (Washburn Univ.), Adrian L. Melott (Univ. of Kansas), Brian D. Fields (Univ. of Illinois), Barbara J. Anthony-Twarog (Univ. of Kansas)

Recently Supernova 2006gy was noted as the most luminous ever recorded, with a total radiated energy of ~10^44 Joules. It was proposed that the progenitor may have been a massive evolved star similar to Eta Carinae, which resides in our own galaxy at a (poorly determined) distance of ~2.5 kpc. Eta Carinae appears ready to detonate, and in fact had an outburst in 1843. Although it is too distant to pose a serious threat as a normal supernova, and given its rotation axis is unlikely to produce a Gamma Ray Burst oriented toward the Earth, Eta Carinae is about 30,000 times nearer than 2006gy, and we re-evaluate it as a potential superluminous supernova. We find that given the large ratio of emission in the optical to the X-ray, atmospheric effects are negligible. Ionisation of the atmosphere and concomitant ozone depletion are unlikely to be important. Any cosmic ray effects should be spread out over ~10^4 y, and similarly unlikely to produce any serious perturbation to the biosphere. We also discuss a new possible effect of supernovae, endocrine disruption induced by blue light near the peak of the optical spectrum. This is a possibility for nearby supernovae at distances too large to be considered "dangerous" for other reasons. However, due to reddening and extinction by the interstellar medium, Eta Carinae is unlikely to trigger such effects to any significant degree.

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A 50 light-year-wide view of the Carina Nebula has been released to celebrate the 17th anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
Carina is an immense nebula situated at an estimated 7 500 light years away in the southern constellation Carina, at the keel of the ship Argo Navis. This panoramic image of the nebula gives us a peek into star formation as it commonly occurs along the dense spiral arms of a galaxy.
A mosaic of 48 images taken by Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys, it is overlaid with information in colour obtained from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. It shows the process of star birth at a new level of detail.


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Credits: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (UC Berkeley) and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The landscape of the nebula is sculpted by the action of outflowing winds and ultraviolet radiation from the monster stars that inhabit it. These stars are now acting on the surrounding material leftover after their birth to produce a second generation of stars.

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