hip-109102

Its story

In the small constellation of Lacerta shines this orange K-type giant, whose light has traveled more than six hundred years to reach us. It set out around the fourteenth century, when the Black Death was sweeping across Europe and rewriting the history of the continent. Far cooler and larger than the Sun, it belongs to that lineage of aged stars that have left hydrogen fusion behind and swollen into amber-toned giants —quiet sentinels in the discreet corners of the northern sky.