hip-68101

Its story

Centaurus is one of the vastest, richest constellations of the southern sky, home to Alpha Centauri, the stellar system nearest to our Sun. Far from that jewel, in more discreet corners, glows this yellow star — sibling in tone and temperature to our own — whose light took about 126 years to arrive. It set out at the end of the nineteenth century, when Hertzsprung and Russell were beginning to classify stars by colour and luminosity, founding the diagram that to this day organises our understanding of the cosmos.