This image may not be used by or to promote the arms, nuclear power or tobacco industries or any religious organisation, or in any discriminatory way,
This image may not be used by or to promote the arms, nuclear power or tobacco industries or any religious organisation, or in any discriminatory way, or to imply the endorsement by ESO of any product, service or activity Eta Carinae star system. Optical image of the Eta Carinae luminous blue variable. This image clearly shows a bipolar structure as well as the jets coming out from the central star. Eta Carinae is a binary star system in the constellation Carina, about 8000 light years from the Sun. It is currently (as of 2010) classified as a luminous blue variable - a very bright, blue hypergiant star that exhibits long, slow changes in brightness. Imaged with the NACO near-infrared adaptive optics instrument on the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT).
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Photo credit: © EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: 16, 16/12/03, 16/12/2003, 16th, 2003, 21st, adaptive, astronomical, astronomy, astrophysical, astrophysics, binary, bipolar, blue, carina, carinae, century, december, dorado, doradus, eso, eta, european, galaxy, hyper-giant, hypergiant, infrared, instrument, jet, jets, large, luminous, naco, observatory, optics, planetary, region, regions, science, single, southern, space, star, stars, stellar, system, telescope, universe, variable, vlt
