Carina
What is Carina?
Constellations· Southern summer–autumn · second-brightest star; not visible from Europe or most of the US. The keel of the Argo, the ship that sailed for the Golden Fleece. It holds Canopus, the second-brightest star in the night sky, and the Carina Nebula, a vast cloud of glowing gas in the southern sky.
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Stars of the figure
| Star | Magnitude |
|---|---|
| Canopus | -0.7 |
| Miaplacidus | 1.7 |
| Avior | 1.9 |
| Theta Carinae | 2.7 |
| Upsilon Carinae | 2.9 |
The 5 brightest of the 10 stars used in the figure (9 lines). Lower magnitude means brighter.
Deep-sky objects near this constellation
Constellation basics
| Season | January–April from the south; Canopus rises only south of about 37°N, never from New York or London |
|---|---|
| Brightest star | Canopus (−0.7, second-brightest star) |
| How to find | from bright Canopus below Sirius toward the Southern Cross |
| Area rank | 34th of 88 |
Figures are representative approximations. Source: compiled from NASA and IAU public data.
In 1843, the star that became the second brightest in the sky
In March 1843 the star Eta Carinae, inside the Carina Nebula, suddenly brightened to nearly magnitude −1. It became the second-brightest star in the whole sky, after Sirius. In this event, called the Great Eruption, the star threw off more than ten Suns' worth of gas. Yet the star itself was not destroyed.
Afterwards, hidden behind the gas it had thrown out, it faded to 8th magnitude. Today it is slowly brightening again and is around 4th magnitude. The gas from 1843 now surrounds the star as the Homunculus Nebula, shaped like two balloons joined together. Comparing Hubble images shows the cloud expanding at about 600 km per second.
Eta Carinae is a pair of stars that orbit each other every 5.5 years. The larger has about a hundred times the Sun's mass, among the heaviest stars in the Milky Way. A star this massive is expected to end as a supernova, but no one can say when.
The constellation in depth
Carina is part of the Argo, the ship in which Jason and the Argonauts sailed in search of the Golden Fleece. The keel is the long beam that runs along the bottom of a ship. The Argo was once a single, huge constellation. It was so large that in the 1750s the French astronomer Lacaille split it into three: Carina (the keel), Puppis (the stern) and Vela (the sails). That is why its Greek-lettered stars are scattered across all three.
Canopus is a white giant star 310 light-years away, shining about ten thousand times as brightly as the Sun. Its brightness is steady and it lies far from the path of the planets, so spacecraft use it as a reference star for finding their direction. It is named after the helmsman of King Menelaus of Sparta in the Trojan War.
The Carina Nebula, NGC 3372, is a cloud of gas several times larger than the Orion Nebula, and many stars are still being born inside it. Nearby is the False Cross, which is easily mistaken for the Southern Cross. Four stars of Carina and Vela form it; it is larger and a little fainter than the real cross.
On southern summer evenings, the very bright star below Sirius is Canopus. It never rises from London or New York; from Houston (29.8° N), farther south, it climbs to about seven degrees above the southern horizon on February nights. In East Asia it was known as the Old Man Star, and seeing it was believed to bring a long life. Switch the Sky view to Sydney to see the nebula as well.
Frequently asked
- When can I see Carina?
- Carina is best seen in January–April from the south; Canopus rises only south of about 37°N, never from New York or London.
- How do I find Carina?
- To find Carina, look for from bright Canopus below Sirius toward the Southern Cross.
- What is the brightest star in Carina?
- The brightest star in Carina is Canopus, at magnitude -0.7.
Related
Figures are representative approximations. Simulated positions use J2000 mean elements.