hip-52221

Its story

Deep within Carina pulses a blue B-type sun, a variable flame whose brightness rises and falls as though breathing. Its light travelled 524 years to today: when it set out, Leonardo da Vinci was beginning his notebooks on anatomy and mechanics. Far more massive and hotter than our Sun, its blue glow trembles in nearly imperceptible cycles, a slow heartbeat reminding us that no star, however steady it looks, is ever entirely still.