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Goddard TV Video Tape: G2015-001 -- Eta Carinae Inner Workings

Movie

Title
Explore Eta Carinae from the inside out with the help of supercomputer simulations and data from NASA satellites and ground-based observatories. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel . For complete transcript, click here . NASA Missions Take an Unparalleled Look into Superstar Eta Carinae
Density simulation. This movie shows a wide view of the system looking down on the orbital plane of the two stars, which are located at the center. The view spans 3,200 times the average distance between Earth and the sun, or 298 billion miles (478 billion kilometers). Lighter colors indicate greater densities, with the highest densities occurring near the primary and in the wind interaction region. The faster wind of the smaller star carves a spiral cavity into the dense wind of the primary star, and this structure expands outward with the primary wind at about 1 million mph (1.6 million km/h. Supercomputer Simulations of Eta Carinae