Kap

Its story

Kappa Gruis accompanies the long, slender neck of the Crane, one of the birds drawn into the southern sky by the Dutch explorers of the late sixteenth century. At 364 light-years, it is an orange K-type giant whose warm light blends with the set of stars sketching the bird's elegant body. The constellation, with its unmistakable silhouette, recalls the oceanic voyages when the southern sky was still a cartographic territory to invent.