hip-100097

Its story

The Swan spreads its wings over the Milky Way, and some 295 light years away it shelters a white A-type star. Its light departed around 1731, when John Hadley was presenting the octant that would forever change astronomical navigation. Hotter than the Sun and of an intense white, it shares its family with stars of silvery hues and spectra dominated by hydrogen. The great celestial bird, seeming to glide down the galaxy's stream, lends it a throne among dark nebulae and clusters where young stars are born without pause.