[2] Based upon parallax measurements taken during the Hipparcos mission, it is roughly 720 light-years (220 parsecs) distant from the Sun.
[4] The star made its closest approach about 4.7 million years ago when it underwent perihelion passage at a distance of 10.9 ly (3.33 pc).
[4] This is an evolving B-type subgiant star with a stellar classification of B8 IV,[3] having recently left the main sequence.
Early Arab poets referred to a number of anonymous stars as الفرود al-furūd, "the solitary ones".
Later Arabian astronomers attempted to identify this name with particular stars, principally in the modern constellations Centaurus and Colomba.