Discovery of a Little Homunculus within the Homunculus Nebula of η Carinae
Kaiser, Mary Elizabeth; Smith, Nathan; Gull, Theodore R.; Davidson, Kris; Kimble, Randy A.; Ishibashi, Kazunori; Woodgate, Bruce E.; Danks, Anthony C.; Joseph, Charles L.; Linsky, Jeffrey L.; Lanz, Thierry; Maran, Stephen P.; Lindler, Don; Feggans, Keith; Bowers, Charles W.; Weistrop, Donna; Verner, Ekaterina; Kraemer, Steven; Heap, Sarah R.; Roesler, Fred
United States
Abstract
We report long-slit spectroscopic mapping of the η Carinae nebula obtained using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. The observations reveal the presence of a previously unknown bipolar emission nebula (roughly +/-2" along its major axis) embedded within the well-known and larger Homunculus Nebula. A preliminary analysis suggests that this embedded nebula may have originated from a minor eruption event circa 1890, 50 years after the formation of the larger Homunculus.
Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and supported by GO grants 7302 and 8327 from the Space Telescope Science Institute and STIS GTO funding. This paper is a merger of the HST GO programs (PI: K. Davidson) and STIS IDT Key Project 8483, which used orbits allocated in the shared Guaranteed Telescope Observations. The STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.