The Little Man and the Cosmic Cauldron: VLT images two nebulae in Carina (Forwarded)

ESO Education and Public Relations Dept.

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Dr. Henri Boffin
ESO Press Officer
Phone: +49 89 3200 6222

Valentina Rodriguez
ESO Press Officer in Chile
Phone: +56 2 463 3123

For Immediate Release: 27 May 2008

ESO Press Photo 17/08

The Little Man and the Cosmic Cauldron

VLT images two nebulae in Carina

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Very Large Telescope's
First Light, ESO is releasing two stunning images of different kinds of
nebulae, located towards the Carina constellation. The first one, Eta
Carinae, has the shape of a 'little man' and surrounds a star doomed to
explode within the next 100 000 years. The second image features a much
larger nebula, whose internal turmoil is created by a cluster of young,
massive stars.

Being brighter than one million Suns, Eta Carinae is the most luminous
star known in the Galaxy. It is the closest example of a luminous blue
variable, the last phase in the life of a very massive star before it
explodes in a fiery supernova.

Eta Carinae is surrounded by an expanding bipolar cloud of dust and gas
known as the Homunculus ('little man' in Latin), which astronomers believe
was expelled from the star during a great outburst seen in 1843 [1].

Eta Carinae was one of the first objects to be imaged during First Light
with ESO's VLT, 10 years ago. At the time, the image obtained with a test
camera already showed the unique capabilities of the European flagship
telescope for ground-based optical and infrared astronomy, as well as of
its unique location on the mountain of Paranal. The image had a resolution
of 0.38 arcseconds.

The new, recently obtained image reveals even more, with a resolution a
factor of 6 to 7 times better. It was obtained with the NACO near-infrared
instrument on Yepun, Unit Telescope 4 of the VLT. NACO is an adaptive
optics instrument, which means that it can correct for the blurring effect
of the atmosphere. And looking at the image, the power of adaptive optics
is clear. The image quality is as though the whole 8.2-m telescope had
been launched into space [2].

When viewed through the eyepiece of a small telescope, the Homunculus may
indeed resemble a little man, but the astounding NACO image clearly shows
a bipolar structure. Also very well resolved is the fine structure of the
jets coming out from the central star.

Last year, the Very Large Telescope Interferometer also studied Eta
Carinae in great detail and provided invaluable information about the
stellar wind of Eta Carinae (see ESO 06/07).

The second image was obtained with the ISAAC infrared imager on Antu, Unit
Telescope 1.

Located 9 000 light-years away, i.e. farther away than Eta Carinae, NGC
3576 is also in the direction of the southern Carina constellation. NGC
3576 is about 100 light-years across, that is, 25 times larger than the
distance between the Sun and its closest neighbouring star.

This intriguing nebula is a gigantic region of glowing gas, where stars
are currently forming. The intense radiation and winds from the massive
stars are shredding the clouds from which they form, creating dramatic
scenery. It is estimated that the nebula is about 1.5 million year old,
the blink of an eye on cosmological timescales.

Astronomers from the University of Cologne [3], Germany, have studied this
region with ESO's Very Large Telescope and ISAAC to determine the
proportion of stars still having a protoplanetary disc from which planets
form. Looking at young regions of different ages, the astronomers hope to
estimate the lifetime of protoplanetary discs and thereby better
understand how planets form. In particular, the scientists are interested
in looking at the effect of the strong radiation of the stars, as well as
of stellar encounters in these dense regions, on the survival of the
discs.

Notes

[1] In fact, since the distance to Eta Carinae is about 7500 light-years,
the eruption must have taken place about 7700 years ago.

[2] Given the large size of each Unit Telescope of the VLT, the resolution
achievable when using adaptive optics (the 'diffraction limit') is as good
in the longer near-infrared wavelengths, where NACO observes, as what the
HST can achieve in the visible. The resolution is indeed close to 0.05
arcseconds, ten times better than what one can typically obtain without
adaptive optics on an excellent site. A resolution of 0.05 arcseconds
corresponds to being able to read a book 10 km away.

[3] The astronomers are C. Olczak, R. Schödel, S. Pfalzner, and A. Eckart.

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