An unusual brightening of eta Carinae

HST/Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph data show that the apparent near-UV, visual-wavelength, and near-IR brightness of eta Car increased by a factor of two during 1998. Meanwhile its Homunculus ejecta nebula brightened by about 30%, the largest fluctuation of this type in the past 40 years. These developments were quite unexpected and are not easy to explain. Some dust has probably been destroyed, while the star's luminosity may have increased even though it was already close to the Eddington limit. Such a rapid luminosity change would be a truly remarkable phenomenon, not predicted by existing models.