hip-70069

Its story

Deep in the southern Centaur burns a blue giant whose light took 1,226 years to reach us. When it left that surface, Iberian kingdoms were sharpening swords for the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa and medieval Europe was tilting toward its long autumn. It belongs to class B —blue-white, several times hotter than the Sun—, one of those stellar bonfires that burn through their fuel with cosmic haste.