So when is the supermassive star Eta Carinae going to blow? No one knows. But at 100 - 150 times the Sun's mass, it doesn't have much time left. And the presence of lots of nitrogen in the gas surrounding it is a bad sign: that means that the star was making heavy elements in its core, then belching them up into space. By the time a star like Eta Car is making nitrogen, it doesn't have long left to go. And when it goes, it'll go.
So Eta Car is ticking bomb. It could go off tonight, or in the year 3000 (did Futurama ever cover this?), but it won't be much longer than that.
Note that the lobes appear to be tilted away from us by about 40 degrees or so. That's a good thing. When stars like Eta Carinae explode, they tend to shoot of beams of energy and matter that, at its distance of 7500 light years, could kill every living thing on Earth. But since it's pointed away from us, all we'll get is a spectacular light show. If you're keeping score at home, gamma-ray burst aimed at you = bad, pretty supernova with no accompanying high energy radiation = good. |