You might not realize, but you've got front row seats to one of the most spectacular events in the Universe. Eta Carinae, a star with 100-150 times the mass of the Sun is about to explode.
Eta Carinae is big, bright, unstable, and best of all, it's relatively close. When it goes off, it'll generate as much light as the full Moon - clearly visible during the day. Before you hide behind a sheet of lead, don't worry, it's still 7,500 light-years away. That's far enough to not cause any damage to us fragile Earthlings, but it'll provide a beautiful sky show.
This latest image was taken by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and then merged together with a visible-light image from Hubble. The golden halo around the central area is the data from Chandra, and indicates where recently ejected material is smashing into an older cloud of gas. This collision creates a shockwave, generating the X-rays captured by Chandra.
The fate of Eta Carinae has been highlighted, thanks to the recent explosion of another monster star: SN2006gy. This supernova blew up in a nearby galaxy, and was the most powerful explosion of this type ever measured. And Eta Carinae could be even more massive.
Astronomers do argue about when Eta Carinae is going to go. One school of thought says that it still has one final stage to go through, and could still be tens of thousands of years away from the final supernova explosion. Another group thinks that it's ready to blow right now - it could even detonate within the next few years.
So keep your eye on Eta Carinae. It could go tomorrow, or it could go in several thousand years. And for the lucky observers, it'll be one of the most spectacular supernovae explosions in human history.
Enjoy the show.
Here's a link to the original Chandra image.
