Eta

Its story

It spins on its axis at 271 km/s, a speed so extreme that it deforms the star itself: its equator is nearly a quarter wider than its poles, a blue-white ball flattened by its own vertigo. A young subgiant of barely 65 million years, almost three times the Sun's mass, it shines in Aquarius some 168 light-years away. Each May the Eta Aquariid meteor shower appears to emanate from its corner of the sky, though the particles burning in our atmosphere are in truth dust from Comet Halley.