Azelfafage

Its story

Azelfafage is a hot blue star in Cygnus, whose name, from the Arabic «aẓ-ẓulfah», seems to refer to a tuft of feathers on the celestial bird's neck. At 1,726 light-years, it is among the most distant stars visible to the unaided eye on a dark night: the light defining it tonight set out around the third century, when the Roman Empire was still wrestling with crisis and reform, and no one on Earth yet spoke of «Cygnus».