Homunculus Nebula

Homunculus Nebula — nebula, explore its interactive 3D model in Cosmoscope.

Explore Homunculus Nebula in an interactive 3D view of space. Inspect its astronomical data and the observations or reconstructions behind the model.

Two billowing lobes of dust blasted out of Eta Carinae during an eruption so violent it briefly became the second-brightest star in the sky — a star that survived its own near-death explosion.

Type

Bipolar ejecta nebula

Distance

7,500 light-years

Born

The Great Eruption, seen in the 1840s

Central star

Eta Carinae — a doomed ~100-solar-mass binary

Expanding at

~650 km/s

Shown here

VLT-based 3D shape (Steffen et al. 2014) · Hubble colours

Fine detail

Dust thickness, small clumps and skirt are illustrative

Explore Homunculus Nebula in 3D

Homunculus Nebula is placed in three-dimensional space using catalogue coordinates and an adopted astronomical distance. Rotate and zoom to explore the model. Stellar surfaces, gas structure and dust depths may be reconstructed or illustrative, as described in its facts; this is not live imagery from a telescope.