Carina Nebula: Cosmic Cliffs

At a glance

Key points

• One of Webb's first images
• The wall of a bubble carved by young stars
• Dozens of newly revealed young stars

Being eroded

Ultraviolet light from hot stars above the frame is eating into the cloud. The 'steam' rising from the cliffs is ionised gas streaming away, and dozens of previously hidden young stars appear in the infrared.

The wider Carina Nebula

NGC 3324 is one corner of the far larger Carina Nebula, NGC 3372, which Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille recorded from the Cape of Good Hope in 1752. Published distances for the complex range from about 7,500 to 9,000 light-years, depending on the method. It is one of the largest and brightest star-forming regions in the sky, about four times the size of the Orion Nebula by ESO's estimate, and its clusters hold some of the most massive stars known in the Milky Way.

Eta Carinae

The nebula's most famous star is Eta Carinae, a system whose main star has around 100 times the Sun's mass and shines millions of times brighter. In 1843 an outburst, sometimes called a 'false supernova', made it the second-brightest star in the night sky for a few years. It survived, and the ejected material now forms the twin-lobed Homunculus Nebula. It is expected to end as a supernova, but nobody can say when.

What Webb added

Webb's NIRCam and MIRI cameras turned the dusty rim of the cavity into a detailed landscape whose tallest 'peaks' rise about 58 light-years. Near-infrared light slips through dust, so stars hidden inside the cloud and even background galaxies show through; the mid-infrared view highlights the dust and the youngest protostars, some firing jets. Because the radiation keeps eroding the cloud, stars forming here have a limited time to gather material before it is stripped away.

Observing it

The Carina Nebula is a naked-eye patch at around magnitude 4.8 in the southern constellation Carina, best seen from the southern hemisphere in early autumn (around March and April). From tropical northern latitudes it skims low above the southern horizon in early spring; from Europe and most of the United States it never rises. Binoculars or a small telescope show the dark Keyhole beside Eta Carinae, while NGC 3324 is a fainter glow to the north-west.

Missions

1. 2021–

   James Webb Space Telescope

   NASA / ESA / CSAActive

   Infrared observatory at Sun–Earth L2, about 1.5 million km from Earth.

   Mission page (opens in a new tab)

Related entries

• Pillars of CreationStar-forming columns in the Eagle Nebula
• Orion NebulaM42 · the nearest large stellar nursery

Sources

1. ESA: ESA/Webb weic2205 (opens in a new tab)
2. NASA Science: Hubble Caldwell catalog: Caldwell 92 (opens in a new tab)
3. ESO: The Carina Nebula (opens in a new tab)

Last reviewed 10 Oct 2026 against these sources. Built from public NASA, ESA and JPL data; not affiliated with or endorsed by any agency.