The Carina Nebula was selected as one of five cosmic objects observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, as part of the release of its first official science images.

A detailed image was made of an early star-forming region of NGC 3324 known as the Cosmic Cliffs.

In 2006, Eta Carinae still had the highest confirmed luminosity, based on data across a broad range of wavelengths.)

They are quite rare—only a few dozen in a galaxy as big as ours—and they flirt with disaster near the Eddington limit, i.e., the outward pressure of their radiation is almost strong enough to counteract gravity.

Stars that are more than 120 solar masses exceed the theoretical Eddington limit, and their gravity is barely strong enough to hold in its radiation and gas, resulting in a possible supernova or hypernova in the near future.

Dark globules and some other less visible objects have tails pointing directly away from the massive star.

It is believed to have been ejected in an enormous outburst in 1841 which briefly made Eta Carinae the second-brightest star in the sky.

The Homunculus Nebula is a small H II region, with gas shocked into ionized and excited states.

[12] It also absorbs much of the light from the extremely luminous central stellar system and re-radiates it as infrared (IR).

[13]: 145–169 The distance to the Homunculus can be derived from its observed angular dimensions and calculated linear size, assuming it is axially symmetric.

The largest radius of the bipolar lobes in this model is about 22,000 AU, and the axis is oriented 41° from the line of sight, or 49° relative to the plane of the sky, which means it is seen from Earth slightly more "end on" than "side on".

[23][24][25] A small Bok globule in the Keyhole Nebula (at RA 10h 44m 30s, Dec −59° 40') has been photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope and is nicknamed the "Carina Defiant Finger" due to its shape.

[26] In Hubble images, light can be seen radiating off the edges of the globule; this is especially visible in the southern tip, where the "finger" is.

Mystic Mountain is the term for a dust–gas pillar in the Carina Nebula, a photo of which was taken by Hubble Space Telescope on its 20th anniversary.

[33] WR 25 is a binary system in the central portion of the Carina Nebula, a member of the Trumpler 16 cluster.

[43][44] The Galactic O-Star Spectroscopic Survey has used it as the standard star for the newly created O4 subgiant spectral type.

The spectrum shows some ionized nitrogen and helium emission lines, indicating some mixing of fusion products to the surface and a strong stellar wind.