Explanation:
A jewel of the southern sky,
the Great
Carina Nebula, aka NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years,
one of our galaxy's largest star
forming regions.
Like the smaller, more northerly
Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula
is easily visible to the naked eye, though at a distance of
7,500 light-years it is some 5 times farther away.
This
stunning telescopic view reveals remarkable details of the
region's glowing filaments of interstellar gas and dark
cosmic dust clouds.
The Carina Nebula is home to young, extremely massive stars, including
the still enigmatic variable
Eta
Carinae, a star with well over 100 times the mass of the Sun.
Eta Carinae
is the bright star left of the central dark notch
in this field and just below the dusty Keyhole
Nebula (NGC 3324).
