hip-62058

Its story

It shines in Crux, the small Southern Cross —cardinal emblem of the southern sky and badge on so many flags of the southern hemisphere. It is a hot blue star of B class, kin in color and temperature to the great beacons that populate the galaxy's young spiral arms. Its light set out some 382 years ago, when Galileo —already under house arrest— was publishing in the Netherlands his Discourses on Two New Sciences. Far hotter and more luminous than the Sun, it reinforces the bluish-white outline of the southern cross.