Lasers in Eta Carinae

About This Image

Have you heard about the great LASER light show in the sky? Well, nobody had until it was announced just yesterday by a team led by K. Davidson (U. Minnesota) and S. Johansson (U. Lund). The research team discovered that the unusually variable star Eta Carinae emits ultraviolet light of such a specific color it is most probably LASER light! The artist's conception shown above depicts a possible model for the Hubble Space Telescope observations. In this model, Eta Carinae emits many LASER beams from its surrounding cloud of energized gas. Infrared LASERS and microwave MASERS are extremely rare astrophysical phenomena, but this ultraviolet LASER is the first of its kind to be discovered.