hip-61498

Its story

In Centaurus, some 237 light-years away, shines this white type A star. Its light set out around 1789, just as Paris stormed the Bastille and a thousand-year order began to falter. Hotter and more luminous than the Sun, it offers a clean and serene glow between the haunches of the celestial centaur, that figure the southern hemisphere has long contemplated as patient guardian of the austral skies.