hip-65721

Its story

70 Virginis was one of the first stars where humanity confirmed a planet beyond the Solar System: in January 1996, in San Antonio, the discovery was announced of a gas giant some seven times the mass of Jupiter sweeping around it on an eccentric 116-day orbit. It lies only 59 light-years away, practically around the cosmic corner. Its yellow light echoes the Sun's —a slightly older, more mature sister— and its name stayed inscribed in the history of astronomy.