From the July 2011 issue

Does Eta Carinae have enough mass to eventually become a neutron star, or even a black hole?

Carlos Santos, Burlington, New Jersey
By | Published: July 25, 2011 | Last updated on May 18, 2023

Eta-Carinae_600
Eta Carinae Photo credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

Each star in the Eta Carinae system is massive enough to form a neutron star in a supernova explosion.

Because we’ve observed black holes in binary systems with a massive star companion, it is a good bet that the most massive stars like Eta Carinae do collapse to black holes.