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40-539: Carina was once a part of Argo Navis , the great ship of the mythical Jason and the Argonauts who searched for the Golden Fleece . The constellation of Argo was introduced in ancient Greece . However, due to the massive size of Argo Navis and the sheer number of stars that required separate designation, Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille divided Argo into three sections in 1763, including Carina (the hull or keel). In

80-499: A boat. Over time, Argo became identified exclusively with ancient Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts . In Ptolemy 's Almagest , Argo Navis occupies the portion of the Milky Way between Canis Major and Centaurus , with stars marking such details as the "little shield", the "steering-oar", the "mast-holder", and the "stern-ornament", which continued to be reflected in cartographic representations in celestial atlases into

120-528: A far less drastic outburst. Eta Carinae is a binary star , with a companion that has a period of 5.5 years; the two stars are surrounded by the Homunculus Nebula , which is composed of gas that was ejected in 1843. There are several less prominent variable stars in Carina. l Carinae is a Cepheid variable noted for its brightness; it is the brightest Cepheid that is variable to the unaided eye. It

160-550: A grouping of three IAU constellations. It is formerly a single large constellation in the southern sky . The genitive is "Argus Navis", abbreviated "Arg". John Flamsteed and other early modern astronomers called it Navis (the Ship), genitive "Navis", abbreviated "Nav". The constellation proved to be of unwieldy size, as it was 28% larger than the next largest constellation and had more than 160 easily visible stars. The 1755 catalogue of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille divided it into

200-424: A white hue. The companion, υ Carinae B, is a giant star with a classification of B7 III, although Mandrini and Niemela (1986) suggested it may be a subgiant star with a classification of B4–5 IV. The outer envelope of this star has an effective temperature of around 23,000 K, resulting in the blue-white hue of a B-type star. The two stars have an angular separation of 5.030  arcseconds . As

240-404: A white-hued supergiant that is the second-brightest star in the night sky at magnitude −0.72. Alpha Carinae, as Canopus is formally designated, is 313 light-years from Earth. 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,

280-557: Is Canopus (α Carinae), the second-brightest night-time star, now assigned to Carina. Argo Navis is known from Greek texts, which derived it from Egypt around 1000 BC. Plutarch attributed it to the Egyptian "Boat of Osiris ." Some academics theorized a Sumerian origin related to the Epic of Gilgamesh , a hypothesis rejected for lack of evidence that Mesopotamian cultures considered these stars, or any portion of them, to form

320-412: 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

360-460: 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, with a mass of approximately 100 solar masses and 4 million times as bright as the Sun. It was first discovered to be unusual in 1677, when its magnitude suddenly rose to 4, attracting the attention of Edmond Halley . Eta Carinae is inside NGC 3372, commonly called

400-421: Is a yellow-hued supergiant star with a minimum magnitude of 4.2 and a maximum magnitude of 3.3; it has a period of 35.5 days. V382 Carinae is a yellow hypergiant , one of the rarest types of stars. It is a slow irregular variable , with a minimum magnitude of 4.05 and a maximum magnitude of 3.77. As a hypergiant, V382 Carinae is a luminous star, with 212,000 times more luminosity than the Sun and over 480 times

440-462: Is another open cluster approximately of the same size, though it is more distant at 3,000 light-years from Earth. It is more loose and dim than NGC 2516, as its brightest stars are only 6th magnitude. The most prominent open cluster in Carina is IC 2602 , also called the "Southern Pleiades ". It contains Theta Carinae , along with several other stars visible to the unaided eye. In total, the cluster possesses approximately 60 stars. The Southern Pleiades

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480-545: Is called the Keyhole, or the Keyhole Nebula . This was described in 1847 by John Herschel , and likened to a keyhole by Emma Converse in 1873. The Keyhole is about seven light-years wide and is composed mostly 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 ,

520-682: Is composed of the stars Beta , Theta , Upsilon and Omega Carinae . The Diamond Cross is visible south of 20ºN latitude , and is larger but fainter than the Southern Cross in Crux . Flanking the Diamond Cross is the False cross , composed of four stars - two stars in Carina, Iota Carinae and Epsilon Carinae , and two stars in Vela, Kappa Velorum and Delta Velorum [ 3 ] - and

560-441: Is considered a prime supernova candidate for the next several hundred thousand years because it has reached the end of its estimated million-year life span. NGC 2516 is an open cluster that is both quite large (approximately half a degree square) and bright, visible to the unaided eye. It is located 1,100 light-years from Earth and has approximately 80 stars, the brightest of which is a red giant star of magnitude 5.2. NGC 3114

600-484: Is known as 海石五 ( Hǎi Dàn wǔ , English: the Fifth Star of Sea Rock .) The primary component, υ Carinae A, has a stellar classification of A8 Ib, making it a supergiant star that has exhausted the hydrogen at its core and evolved away from its brief main sequence lifetime as an O9 V star. With an apparent magnitude of +3.08, it has an effective temperature of about 7,600 K, giving it

640-425: Is much more distant at 1,300 light-years from Earth. Carina is home to several double stars and binary stars . Upsilon Carinae is a binary star with two blue-white-hued giant components, 1,600 light-years from Earth. The primary is of magnitude 3.0 and the secondary is of magnitude 6.0; the two components are distinguishable in a small amateur telescope. Two asterisms are prominent in Carina. The 'Diamond Cross'

680-404: Is named for the shock wave seen in the intracluster medium , which resembles the shock wave of a supersonic bullet. The bow shock visible is thought to be due to the smaller galaxy cluster moving through the intracluster medium at a relative speed of 3,000–4,000 kilometers per second to the larger cluster. Because this gravitational interaction has been ongoing for hundreds of millions of years,

720-498: Is often mistaken for the Southern Cross, causing errors in astronavigation . 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 an extended emission nebula approximately 8,000 light-years away and 300 light-years wide that includes vast star-forming regions . It has an overall magnitude of 8.0 and an apparent diameter of over 2 degrees. Its central region

760-406: Is particularly large for an open cluster, with a diameter of approximately one degree. Like IC 2602, NGC 3532 is visible to the unaided eye and is of comparable size. It possesses approximately 150 stars that are arranged in an unusual shape, approximating an ellipse with a dark central area. Several prominent orange giants are among the cluster's bright stars, of the 7th magnitude. Superimposed on

800-466: The Carina Nebula . It had a long outburst in 1827, when it brightened to magnitude 1, only fading to magnitude 1.5 in 1828. Its most prominent outburst made Eta Carinae the equal of Sirius ; it brightened to magnitude −1.5 in 1843. In the decades following 1843 it appeared relatively placid, having a magnitude between 6.5 and 7.9. However, in 1998, it brightened again, though only to magnitude 5.0,

840-677: The Hawaiian Ke Alii-o-kona-i-ka-lewa , "The Chief of the southern expanse" both attest to the star's prominence in the southern sky, while the Māori Atutahi , "First-light" or "Single-light", and the Tuamotu Te Tau-rari and Marere-te-tavahi , "He who stands alone". refer to the star's solitary nature. It was also called Kapae-poto ("Short horizon"), because it rarely sets from the vantage point of New Zealand, and Kauanga ("Solitary"), when it

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880-414: The sails ). Lacaille replaced Bayer's designations with new ones that followed stellar magnitudes more closely, but used only a single Greek-letter sequence and described the constellation for those stars as "Argûs". Similarly, faint unlettered stars were listed only as in "Argûs". The final breakup and abolition of Argo Navis was proposed by Sir John Herschel in 1841 and again in 1844. Despite this,

920-561: The "river of the Milky Way ." The precession of the equinoxes has caused the position of the stars from Earth's viewpoint to shift southward. Though most of the constellation was visible in Classical times, the constellation is now not easily visible from most of the northern hemisphere. All the stars of Argo Navis are easily visible from the tropics southward and pass near zenith from southern temperate latitudes. The brightest of these

960-412: The 19th century, these three became established as separate constellations, and were formally included in the list of 88 modern IAU constellations in 1930. Lacaille kept a single set of Greek letters for the whole of Argo, and separate sets of Latin letter designations for each of the three sections. Therefore, Carina has the α, β and ε, Vela has γ and δ, Puppis has ζ, and so on. Carina contains Canopus ,

1000-510: The South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què ). The rest of the stars were first classified by Xu Guanggi during the Ming dynasty , based on the knowledge acquired from western star charts, and placed among The Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, Jìnnánjíxīngōu ). Polynesian peoples had no name for the constellation in particular, though they had many names for Canopus. The Māori name Ariki ("High-born"), and

1040-458: The Sun's size. Two bright Mira variable stars are in Carina: R Carinae and S Carinae ; both stars are red giants . R Carinae has a minimum magnitude of 10.0 and a maximum magnitude of 4.0. Its period is 309 days and it is 416 light-years from Earth. S Carinae is similar, with a minimum magnitude of 10.0 and a maximum magnitude of 5.0. However, S Carinae has a shorter period—150 days, though it

1080-553: The bright Canopus (−0.7) will have a greater declination than −82°. USS  Carina  (AK-74) was a United States Navy Crater -class cargo ship named after the constellation. the Toyota Carina was named after it. [REDACTED] Media related to Carina (constellation) at Wikimedia Commons Argo Navis Argo Navis (the Ship Argo), or simply Argo , is one of Ptolemy's 48 constellations, now

1120-466: The cluster is Chi Carinae , a yellow-white-hued star of magnitude 3.9, far more distant than NGC 3532. Carina also contains the naked-eye globular cluster NGC 2808 . Epsilon Carinae and Upsilon Carinae are double stars visible in small telescopes. One noted galaxy cluster is 1E 0657-56, the Bullet Cluster . At a distance of 4 billion light-years ( redshift 0.296), this galaxy cluster

1160-403: The compass was part of the ship, but magnetic compasses were unknown in ancient Greek times. Lacaille considered it a separate constellation representing a modern scientific instrument (like Microscopium and Telescopium ), that he created for maps of the stars of the southern hemisphere. Pyxis was listed among his 14 new constellations. In 1844, John Herschel suggested formalizing

1200-496: The constellation remained in use in parallel with its constituent parts into the 20th century. In 1922, along with the other constellations, it received a three-letter abbreviation: Arg . The breakup and relegation to a former constellation occurred in 1930 when the IAU defined the 88 modern constellations, formally instituting Carina , Puppis , and Vela , and declaring Argo obsolete. Lacaille's designations were kept in

1240-507: The largest modern constellation). In his 1763 star catalogue, Nicolas Louis de Lacaille explained that there were more than a hundred and sixty stars clearly visible to the naked eye in Navis, and so he used the set of lowercase and uppercase Latin letters three times on portions of the constellation referred to as " Argûs in carina " ( Carina , the keel ), " Argûs in puppi " ( Puppis , the poop deck or stern ), and " Argûs in velis " ( Vela ,

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1280-428: The mast as a new constellation, Malus , to replace Lacaille's Pyxis , but the idea did not catch on. Similarly, an effort by Edmond Halley to detach the "cloud of mist" at the prow of Argo Navis to form a new constellation named Robur Carolinum (Charles' Oak) in honor of King Charles II , his patron, was unsuccessful. In Vedic period astronomy, which drew its zodiac signs and many constellations from

1320-474: The most massive visible star known. Eta Carinae is so massive that it has reached the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a star and is therefore unstable. It is known for its outbursts; in 1840 it briefly became one of the brightest stars in the sky due to a particularly massive outburst, which largely created the Homunculus Nebula. Because of this instability and history of outbursts, Eta Carinae

1360-577: The nineteenth century (see below). The ship appeared to rotate about the pole sternwards, so nautically in reverse. Aratus , the Greek poet / historian living in the third century BCE, noted this backward progression writing, "Argo by the Great Dog's [Canis Major's] tail is drawn; for hers is not a usual course, but backward turned she comes ...". In modern times, Argo Navis was considered unwieldy due to its enormous size (28% larger than Hydra ,

1400-423: The offspring, so Carina has α, β, and ε; Vela has γ and δ; Puppis has ζ; and so on. As a result of this breakup, Argo Navis is the only one of Ptolemy's 48 constellations that is no longer officially recognized as a single constellation. In addition, the constellation Pyxis (the mariner's compass ) occupies an area near what in antiquity was considered part of Argo's mast. Some recent authors state that

1440-475: The period of the Indo-Greek Kingdom , Indian observers saw the asterism as a boat. The Māori had several names for the constellation, including Te Waka-o-Tamarereti (the canoe of Tamarereti), Te Kohi-a-Autahi (an expression meaning "cold of autumn settling down on land and water"), and Te Kohi . Upsilon Carinae Upsilon Carinae , Latinized from υ Carinae, is a double star in

1480-579: The smaller cluster is being destroyed and will eventually merge with the larger cluster. Carina contains the radiant of the Eta Carinids meteor shower, which peaks around January 21 each year. From China (especially northern China), the stars of Carina can barely be seen. The star Canopus (the south polar star in Chinese astronomy) was located by Chinese astronomers in the Vermilion Bird of

1520-515: The southern constellation of Carina . It is part of the Diamond Cross asterism in southern Carina. The Upsilon Carinae system has a combined apparent magnitude of +2.97 and is approximately 1,400  light years (440  parsecs ) from Earth . In Chinese , 海石 ( Hǎi Dàn ), meaning Sea Rock , refers to an asterism consisting of υ Carinae, ε Carinae , ι Carinae , HD 83183 and HD 84810 . Consequently, υ Carinae itself

1560-472: The three modern constellations that occupy much of the same area: Carina (the keel), Puppis (the poop deck or stern), and Vela (the sails). Argo derived from the ship Argo in Greek mythology , sailed by Jason and the Argonauts to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece . Some stars of Puppis and Vela can be seen from Mediterranean latitudes in winter and spring, the ship appearing to skim along

1600-529: Was the last star visible before sunrise. Carina is in the southern sky quite near the south celestial pole, making it never set (circumpolar) for most of the southern hemisphere. Due to precession of Earth's axis, by the year 4700 the south celestial pole will be in Carina. Three bright stars in Carina will come within 1 degree of the southern celestial pole and take turns as the southern pole star: Omega Carinae (mag 3.29) in 5600, Upsilon Carinae (mag 2.97) in 6700, and Iota Carinae (mag 2.21) in 7900. About 13,860 CE,

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