This star is moving toward the Solar System with a radial velocity of 36 km s−1.

It was previously believed that in roughly 222,000 years, this system could have approached within 1.77 light-years (0.54 parsecs) of the Sun.

[11] With the release of Gaia DR2, the star was determined to be 4 times further from the Sun than initially believed, constraining the approach to only 111 ± 31 light-years (34.0 ± 9.5 parsecs).

[5] Examination of other objects known to be in the same star-forming region gives a distance of 152.9+8.1−7.3 pc, suggesting an error in the Gaia parallax for R CrB itself.

[6] Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt discovered that R Coronae Australis is a variable star, in 1865.