Narrator (April Hobart, CXC): Located in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way a mere 7,500 light years from Earth, the Carina Nebula is one of the best places to study how massive stars live and die. Chandra's extraordinarily sharp X-ray vision has detected over 14,000 stars in this region, revealed a diffuse X-ray glow, and provided strong evidence that supernovas have already occurred in this massive complex of young stars. This includes a scarcity of giant stars in the region known as Trumpler 15. This is evidence that many stars here have already exploded and disappeared. The most famous star in the Carina Nebula is Eta Carinae, which many astronomers believe will itself soon explode as a supernova.
Revised: May 24, 2011