A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula, also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our galaxy's largest star forming (HII) regions. Like the smaller, more northerly famous Great Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula is easily visible to the unaided eye, though at a distance of 7,500 light-years it is some 5 times farther away. Although it is some four times as large and even brighter than the Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula is much less well known, due to its location in the southern sky. It was discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751–52 from the Cape of Good Hope (ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae_Nebula)

This sharp telescopic portrait reveals remarkable details of the region's central area's glowing filaments of interstellar gas and obscuring 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 brightest star right "under" the dusty Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324) at the bottom left part of this image.

While Eta Carinae itself maybe on the verge of a supernova explosion, X-ray images indicate that the Great Carina Nebula has been a veritable supernova factory (ref. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap071027.html and http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110609.html).

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