hip-38010

Its story

More than a thousand light-years away, in the deep austral Stern, a blue type-B ember pulses; its light departed 1,055 years ago, when Christian and Muslim kingdoms still contested Hispania and Europe was emerging from its first millennium. Far more massive and hotter than the Sun, its surface burns at tens of thousands of degrees and its intrinsic brilliance vastly exceeds that of our daytime star. To behold it is to glimpse the Middle Ages translated into light.