Eta Carinae is a massive star. The most massive known. It has an estimated mass of 100-120 suns.
Recent observations confirmed the Brazilian astronomer's Augusto Daminelli model that proposed that Eta Carinae would be a double star, and no a single star, with
apparent total mass among 100 - 120 times the mass of our Sun.
Due to its duplicity Eta Carinae shows spectroscopics eclipses every 5,52 years, what was confirmed by observations done in 2003 and 2008.
Like this Eta Carinae actually would be two stars with masses of 80 and 30 solar masses.
More here:
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http://www.etacarinae.iag.usp.br/-
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-release/releases/2003/03-04.htm-
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/nov/HQ_05353_massive_star.html-
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/companion_star.html-
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs?bibcode=2007MNRAS.378..309A&-
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1538-4357/530/2/L107/995829.text.html-
http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/eta-car.htmNote: a group of brasilian amateur astronomers develop an homemade spectrograph and can register the spectroscopic eclipse of Eta CArinae in 2003. The data collected by this amteur astronomers are used in the final papaer of the confirmation of the duplicity of the Eta Carinae:
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http://www.astroimagem.com/Espectro/EtaHP01en.htm[ ]īs
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