hip-30143

Its story

In Columba, the celestial dove that recalls Noah's biblical bird, shines a blue B-type star nearly two thousand light-years away. Its light began its journey when the Roman Empire was living the final centuries of its splendour and legions still patrolled the frontiers of the known world. Far hotter and brighter than the Sun, its cold radiance traverses millennia to alight —late, very late— upon our contemporary eyes.