Go to: SUPER STAR The supermassive star Eta Carinae produced a giant outburst about 150 years ago, becoming one of the brightest stars in the southern sky. The star unleashed as much visible light as a supernova, but somehow survived the explosion, which produced two polar lobes and a thin dust disk, all moving outward at about 1.5 million mph. The Hubble Space Telescope took this composite portrait of the star, which is more than 8,000 light-years away. (07/10/02)