Keyhole Nebula, NGC 3372 (Hubble Palette, SHO)

The Keyhole Nebula, NGC 3372  A jewel of the southern sky, the Great Carina Nebula, also known as NGC 3372, spans over 300 light-years, one of our galaxy’s largest star forming regions. The bright star in the center is the Eta Carina and just to the right is the Keyhole Nebula. It is a small dark cloud of cold molecules and dust  containing bright filaments of hot, fluorescing gas, silhouetted against the much brighter background nebula. The diameter of the Keyhole structure is approximately seven light-years . Its appearance has changed significantly since it was first observed, possibly due to changes in the ionizing radiation from Eta Carinae. Like the smaller, more northerly the Great Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula is easily visible to the unaided eye, though at a distance of 7,500 light-years it is some 5 times farther away. The Carina Nebula is home to young, extremely massive stars, including the still enigmatic and violently variable Eta Carinae, a star system with well over 100 times the mass of the Sun.  While Eta Carinae is likely on the verge of a supernova explosion, X-ray images indicate that the Great Carina Nebula has been a veritable supernova factory.  The image is a superposition of two separate images with the area around and above the keyhole a more detailed image done by the 17″ Planewave telescope. The field of view of this image is about two moon diameters.  The image can be zoomed in to see the detail in this region. This image and the full field image of the Carina nebula complement true color versions seen in the True Color Nebulae collection.