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Old 04-03-2021, 09:38 AM
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astroron (Ron)
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Cambroon Queensland Australia
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Keep watching Eta Carinae

A very interesting article indeed.

This paragraph is doubly interesting

Quote)
Why is Eta Carinae brightening across all wavelengths? Jon Morse of the University of Colorado notes, "Without question, the central star has brightened since 1997 by roughly a factor of two." Morse continues to explain that if the brightening trend continues, in two years Hubble will be unable to image Eta without saturating because the star will be too bright. No one anticipated that this star would climb to bright magnitudes so soon. And what is stranger is that no one can explain why it is happening across all wavelengths. If the star was only brightening in the visual wavelengths, it might be explained that Eta is shedding an outer layer in response to radiation pressure whereby the star's outer layers cool and its output shifts from ultraviolet to visual wavelengths, however, this is not what is observed. Brightening is occurring across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, implying an intrinsic brightening of Eta Carinae. "And Eta Carinae can't brighten very much," notes Humphreys, "or else it will go boom."



https://www.aavso.org/vsots_etacar?f...cFfg8xhB4-OEyY
Cheers

Last edited by astroron; 04-03-2021 at 02:10 PM.
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