Carina

Carina /kəˈraɪnə/ is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for the keel of a ship, and it was formerly part of the larger constellation of Argo Navis (the ship Argo) until that constellation was divided into three pieces, the other two being Puppis (the poop deck), and Vela (the sails of the ship). ... History and mythology. Carina was once a part of Argo Navis, the great ship of Jason and the Argonauts who searched for the Golden Fleece. The constellation of Argo was introduced in ancient Greece. However, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille divided the Argo into three component constellations in 1763, including Carina, the Keel. Despite the division, Lacaille kept Argo's Bayer designations. Therefore Carina has the α, β and ε, Vela has γ and δ, Puppis has ζ, and so on. ... Stars. Carina contains Canopus, a white-hued supergiant that is the second brightest star in the night sky at magnitude −0.72, 313 light-years from Earth. Alpha Carinae, as Canopus is formally designated, is a variable star that varies by approximately 0.1 magnitudes. Its traditional name comes from the mythological Canopus, who was a navigator for Menelaus, king of Sparta. There are several other stars above magnitude 3 in Carina. Beta Carinae, traditionally called Miaplacidus, is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 1.7, 111 light-years from Earth. Epsilon Carinae is an orange-hued giant star similarly bright to Miaplacidus at magnitude 1.9; it is 630 light-years from Earth. Another fairly bright star is the blue-white hued Theta Carinae; it is a magnitude 2.7 star 440 light-years from Earth. Theta Carinae is also the most prominent member of the cluster IC 2602. Iota Carinae is a white-hued supergiant star of magnitude 2.2, 690 light-years from Earth. Eta Carinae is the most prominent variable star in Carina; it weighs in at approximately 100 solar masses and is 4 million times as bright as the Sun. ... Deep-sky objects. Carina is known for its namesake nebula, NGC 3372, discovered by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751, which contains several nebulae. The Carina Nebula overall is a colossal emission nebula approximately 8,000 light-years away and 300 light-years wide that possesses vast star-forming regions; it has an overall magnitude of 8.0. It also has a massive apparent diameter, more than 2 degrees. Its central region is called the Keyhole Nebula, named in 1847 by John Herschel. The Keyhole is about seven light-years wide and is mostly made up of ionized hydrogen, with two major star-forming regions. The Homunculus Nebula is a planetary nebula visible to the naked eye that is being ejected by the erratic luminous blue variable star Eta Carinae, the most massive visible star known. Since the Milky Way runs through Carina, there are a large number of open clusters in the constellation, embedded in rich star fields. ... The most prominent open cluster in Carina is IC 2602, also called the "Southern Pleiades". ... Meteors. Carina contains the radiant of the Eta Carinids meteor shower, which peaks around January 21 each year. [Carina (constellation). Wikipedia]