Miaplacidus

Its story

Miaplacidus is a white giant resting on the keel of the ancient ship Argo, now charted as Carina. Some 113 light-years away, its calm white glow reaches us from a relatively recent past: what we see tonight set out when the first great reflecting telescopes were reshaping modern astronomy. Its hybrid Arabic-Latin name suggests «placid waters», a fitting epithet for a steady, unflickering star of the southern sky.