Alp

Its story

Alpha Circini is the brightest star in the small constellation of the Compass, only 54 light-years away. It belongs to the rare roAp family — peculiar A-type stars with strong magnetic fields that pulse on scales of minutes, like a cosmic tuning fork. To the unaided eye it is a quiet white spark beside the foot of Centaurus, yet telescopes reveal unusual concentrations of heavy elements in its atmosphere, aligned by its magnetism, making it a well-studied curiosity of the southern sky.