The southern Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud (our neighboring dwarf galaxy). The Great Carina Nebula is the red cloud at the upper left. The nebula gets its red and purple hues from hot hydrogen gas. It sits about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation of the same name. It is also home to one of the brightest stars in the Milky Way galaxy, Eta Carinae. Although Carina Nebula is some four times as large and even brighter than the famous Orion Nebula, it is much less well known, due to its location far in the Southern sky. On its lower right is a young open cluster of blue stars, known as the Southern Pleiades or IC 2602. Brighter stars on the right of Carina Nebula are known as the Diamond Cross, an asterism in Carina made of four bright stars.