Enif

Its story

Enif marks the muzzle of Pegasus — the winged horse of Greek myth — some 690 light-years away from the Earth. It is an orange variable supergiant whose brightness rises and falls over the course of months without warning, one of those stars that astronomers patiently watch in the hope of catching a fresh change. The light now reaching European autumn skies left the star when the first Christian kingdoms of Iberia were beginning the slow Reconquista in the north, still with no idea how long it would take them to bring it to a close.