Rotanev

Its story

Rotanev hides a small astronomical joke: read backwards, the name spells 'Venator', the Latinised surname of the Italian astronomer Niccolò Cacciatore, who quietly christened it in 1814 without anyone in his time noticing the trick. It shines in Delphinus, one of the tiniest and most ancient constellations in the sky, as a yellow-white F-type light at 101 light-years away. Its glow has crossed space throughout the entire twentieth century to reach this very night.