Eta Carinae
The Homunculus Nebula is a bipolar emission and reflection nebula surrounding the massive star system Eta Carinae, about () from Earth. The nebula is embedded within the much larger Carina Nebula, a large star-forming H II region. From the Latin "homunculus" meaning "Little Man", the nebula consists of gas which was ejected from Eta Carinae in 1841. It also contains dust which absorbs much of the light from the extremely luminous central stellar system and re-radiates it as infra-red (IR). It is the brightest object in the sky at mid-IR wavelengths.