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Its story

Along the long neck of the Swan, 354 light-years away, beats an orange type-K star whose light departed when the masters of the Baroque —Vermeer, Rembrandt— painted their interiors in golden gloom. It is an ancient giant, cooler than the Sun yet far more voluminous, able to illuminate space with a warm coppery tone. It sails the northern sky in one of summer's most recognisable constellations, gliding through the Milky Way like an ember that refuses to die out.