hip-61158

Its story

In the Southern Cross shines a white class A star at 245 light-years. Its light departed around 1781, when Herschel was discovering Uranus from Bath and the era of planets beyond Saturn was opening. Of clean tone and a temperature near 9,000 K, its spectral lines are dominated by hydrogen. It is one of the many steady presences of the small yet iconic constellation that guides navigators in the southern hemisphere.