Temperature thumb|left|upright=1.2|alt=The Homunculus Nebula on the left, and a zoomed-in infrared image on the right|Hubble image of the Homunculus Nebula; inset is a VLT NACO infrared image of η Carinae. Until late in the 20th century, the temperature of η Carinae was assumed to be over 30,000 K because of the presence of high-excitation spectral lines, but other aspects of the spectrum suggested much lower temperatures and complex models were created to account for this. It is now known that the Eta Carinae system consists of at least two stars, both with strong stellar winds and a shocked colliding wind (wind-wind collision or WWC) zone, embedded within a dusty nebula that reprocesses 90% of the electromagnetic radiation into the mid and far infrared. All of these features have different temperatures.
Temperature thumb|left|upright=12|alt=The Homunculus Nebula on the left and a zoomed-in infrared image on the right|Hubble image of the Homunculus Nebula; inset is a VLT NACO infrared image of η Carinae Until late in the 20th century the temperature of η Carinae was assumed to be over 30000 K because of the presence of high-excitation spectral lines but other aspects of the spectrum suggested much lower temperatures and complex models were created to account for this It is now known that the Eta Carinae system consists of at least two stars both with strong stellar winds and a shocked colliding wind (wind-wind collision or WWC) zone embedded within a dusty nebula that reprocesses 90% of the electromagnetic radiation into the mid and far infrared All of these features have different temperatures