[Music throughout]
Eta Carinae is a massive binary system 7,500 light-years away.
[X-ray view]
Its two stars are 90 and 30 times the Sun's mass and orbit each other every 5.5 years.
New X-ray observations from NASA's NusSTAR mission show that their interaction
creates cosmic rays by accelerating particles to nearly the speed of light.
Both stars are so hot and bright they shed matter in the form of outflows called stellar winds.
The smaller star's faster, thinner wind carves a tunnel through the primary's slow, thick outflow.
Where these winds collide, shockwaves accelerate particles, some of which crash into starlight.
The collision ramps up the light's energy into X-ray or even gamma-ray territory.
We detect cosmic ray particles at Earth. But because they're electrically charged
they wander in the presence of magnetic fields. This means we can't tell where they're coming from.
Now, thanks to NuSTAR, we know Eta Carinae is producing cosmic rays.
It's more than a superstar.
It's a cosmic ray gun.
[Beeping]