hip-87314

Its story

In Ara, the austral altar kindled by the Olympian gods, pulses a blue variable B-type star nearly a thousand light-years away. Its light set out around the turn of the first millennium, when Europe feared the end of the world in the year one thousand and the skies were observed in an apocalyptic spirit. Far hotter than the Sun and of fluctuating brightness, its flame resembles the living offering of the mythic altar itself, swinging between blaze and calm.