hip-53773

Its story

A white A-type beacon burns deep within Vela, the unfurled sail of the ancient ship Argo cast upon southern skies. Its glow travelled close to 196 years to reach this moment —it departed as the nineteenth century yielded to the twentieth and the first motorcars rattled along Europe's cobbled streets. Hotter than the Sun, it sheds a crisp, serene, almost bluish light that on clear nights traces one of the many scattered jewels of this seafaring constellation.