hip-52405

Its story

From a colossal distance —more than 326,000 light years, almost at the edges of the Milky Way or beyond— burns a variable blue B-type star, anchored in the rich southern constellation of Carina. Its light began its journey when the first Homo sapiens were walking through Africa and written language did not yet exist. Far hotter and more luminous than the Sun, it pulses with subtle changes in brightness that betray its unstable nature. To see it today is to peer into a deep past, older than nearly all human history.