hip-116714

Its story

In the northern region of Cepheus, about 258 light years away, a white A-type star shines. Its light departed around 1768, just as James Cook was setting out on his first voyage to the Pacific aboard the Endeavour, carrying with him the momentum of the Enlightenment and the desire to map the entire world. Hotter than the Sun and of a pure white, it displays in its spectrum the unmistakable mark of hydrogen. The mythical king chained to the northern sky lends it one of the most stable corners of the firmament, close to the circumpolar zone.