hip-41250

Its story

Almost 1,800 light-years away, in the deep austral Stern, beats a blue-white type-B star whose light departed in late antiquity, when the Roman Empire was fragmenting into two halves. It is variable: its brilliance is not constant but oscillates with a slow pulse, like an ember that breathes. Far more massive, hotter and thousands of times more luminous than the Sun, it concentrates all the power of the galaxy's young stars. Its light reaches us as a luminous echo of Rome's ending.