hip-46620

Its story

On the keel of Carina, 968 light-years away, beats a red type-M star whose light departed in the heart of the Middle Ages, around the 11th century, when Europe was pilgrimaging to Compostela. It is a variable giant, cool at the surface but enormously swollen, its intrinsic brightness far exceeding the Sun's. It pulses with a slow rhythm, expanding and contracting like an ancient heart. Its crimson light seems to arrive from the embers of a forgotten era.