hip-109693

Its story

Near the northern celestial pole, where ancient sailors once sought their bearing, shines a bluish star whose light crossed two hundred and fifty-six years of space. When it set out, the Age of Enlightenment was beginning to redraw Europe. It is a young, hot sun whose surface easily doubles the six thousand degrees of our own, with an unmistakable blue-white radiance. It belongs to that circumpolar neighbourhood which never sets for northern observers —a steady companion of the night.