hip-102724

Its story

55 Cygni is a blue supergiant, one of those rare stellar beasts that burn with colossal violence before ending as supernovae. It lies some 2,330 light-years away in the Milky Way of Cygnus, and varies slightly as a variable star —astronomers have placed it among the slow pulsations of blue supergiants—. Its light, kindled when the Roman Empire had not yet dreamt of its fall, now reaches the eye on Earth.