Tau

Its story

Tau Cassiopeiae inhabits the W of the northern sky, that unmistakable silhouette traced by the mythic queen as she eternally wheels around the pole. It is an orange K-type giant 174 light-years away, a star that has already crossed the midway point of its life and swells under the weight of its own evolution. Its warm light stands apart from the other whitish stars of Cassiopeia, an amber point that anchors the gaze in one of the constellations most frequented by northern observers.