hip-41817

Its story

In tiny Pyxis, the celestial sailor's compass, a blue B-type star shines 345 light years away. Its light set out around 1681, in the heart of the European scientific revolution, when Newton was already at work on his Principia. Far hotter and more massive than the Sun, it gives off that bluish-white blaze typical of young and vigorous stars. This modern constellation was sketched by Lacaille in the eighteenth century to accompany the Argo ships across the southern sky, and the star fits like a cold light at the heart of that small compass.