Eta Carinae seen in 3-D

Eta Carinae underwent a titanic explosion, and we can see it now as it was 150 years later. The black and white picture was obtained aligning and subtracting two images of this star taken 17 months apart (April 1994, September 1995).

Material closer into the star (which is the bright blob at the image's center) is blasting into space more quickly than material farther from the star, and shows white. The ejected material expands into space at 1.5 million miles per hour (about 2.5 million km/h).

The color picture shows the motion of the gas and dust between the observations, allowing astronomers to combine and encode the images to reveal the true three-dimensional geometry of the system.

To see the 3D structure the image must be viewed through color 3D glasses with the left eye looking through a red filter, and right eye looking through a blue filter.