hip-43937

Its story

On the keel of the celestial ship Carina pulses a blue-white type-B star whose brightness wavers slightly, as though breathing to its own rhythm. It is a body far hotter and more massive than the Sun, a young flame burning in haste in the deep south. Its light reaches us after 674 years of travel, having set off when medieval Europe was harvesting the fruits of the early Renaissance and the shores of America were still unknown. Its flicker is a remote heartbeat that has not yet ended.