Eta Carinae: a star with a hole
Augusto Damineli
Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas
Universidade de São Paulo
We will show the importance of eta Carinae to understand the very massive stars. In particular, we will focus on the binarity and how it produces a set of phenomena of great interest: the strong wind-wind collision (WWC); the collapse of the WWC at periastron, the possible origin of the great eriuptions and for the ongoing periastron passage the formation of a large hole in the stellar photosphere. This new phenomenon is for the first time reported in Astrophysics. It opens the possibility to probe directly the sub-photospheric layers. We present the first results of a large monitoring campaign using 8 telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere plus the HST, SWIFT and Chandra from space. We will show also show our recent result on the 3D mapping of the Homunculus Nebula and circulate a 3D print to the audience.