Kap

Its story

Kappa Pyxidis is a solitary orange K4 III giant some 520 light-years away, its envelope swollen to sixty-seven solar radii after exhausting the hydrogen in its core. It is drifting silently toward the Solar System at 45 km/s and, in about 2.6 million years, will pass within just 308 light-years of us. Today, a warm ember above the small southern Compass; tomorrow, almost a neighbour.