hip-49698

Its story

On the keel of the southern Carina burns an orange type-K star whose light took 369 years to reach us. When that light departed, Louis XIV was inaugurating Versailles and Baroque Europe gleamed in wigs and mirrors. Cooler than the Sun yet also older, this orange giant has already consumed its central hydrogen and swollen toward a stellar dusk. Its coppery tone is that of a distant bonfire sustained by the patience of time.