Bet

Its story

In the small southern constellation of the Bird of Paradise — also charted by Dutch navigators at the dawn of the 17th century — this orange giant shines with warm light from 157 light-years away. It belongs to that generation of stars which, having exhausted their nuclear youth, swells and reddens without fanfare. The constellation honours the Indonesian bird that sailors called «footless», because the prepared skins reached them without legs, and to which they dedicated a discreet corner of the southern deep sky.