hyg-117996

Its story

In the small southern constellation of the Toucan shines a white type-A star, hotter and more luminous than the Sun. It does not travel alone: it forms a binary system with a companion, two bodies bound by gravity in a patient dance lasting millennia. Its light, surprisingly close, set out barely 68 years ago: it was 1958, when Sputnik 1 was launched and humanity crossed the frontier of space for the first time. It arrived in time to see what was beginning.