hip-106393

Its story

A white class A beacon shows itself in Cygnus at some 493 light-years away. Its light set out around 1532, at the height of the Renaissance, when Machiavelli's The Prince was being published and Pizarro was beginning the conquest of the Inca empire. Hot and crisp, almost bluish in its hues, it travels the luminous river of the northern Milky Way like a gemstone set into the plumage of the swan.