NICER X-ray monitoring of Eta Carinae

Eta Carinae is a massive colliding wind binary stellar system with a mass of >100 M_ʘ. The system includes a Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) and a non-observable mysterious companion with fast winds with speeds close to 3000 km/s. Eta Carinae is a bright source of X-rays between 2.0 - 10.0 keV, created by the collision of the strong winds from the stars. The X-ray emission from the colliding winds is the closest look that we can have to the mass-loss rate from the stars, and mass-loss determines the fate of massive stars. We present our results from the NICER monitoring program of Eta Carinae together with high-resolution Chandra observations from the last cycle. We compare and discuss these latest results with X-ray analysis from previous cycles using RXTE, Swift, and Chandra. Our analysis also includes a comparison of the X-ray emission contrasted with Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) models of the CWR.