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Its story

The Air Pump, that modern and rarely celebrated southern constellation, holds an orange star whose light set out two hundred and eighty years ago, when the first electrical experiments were astonishing European drawing rooms. It is an ageing giant with a surface cooler than the Sun’s, around four thousand degrees, granting it that warm, lukewarm-copper tone. Despite its modest brilliance, its sheer size keeps it visible. It dwells in a discreet patch of sky, with no famous stars to eclipse it.