Xi

Its story

Xi Pavonis is a red M-type giant, cool and enormous, some 469 light-years away in the fiery bird of the southern sky. Its surface, below 4,000 degrees, radiates a coppery light that contrasts vividly with its bluer neighbours under the eyepiece. It is a star in a late stage of life: its outer layers have already swollen to dimensions that would swallow the inner orbits of a system like ours, and it drives a warm stellar wind that slowly returns matter to space.