hip-117371

Its story

On the northern shores of Cepheus shines a white A-type star, hotter and more luminous than the Sun, its surface humming near nine thousand degrees. The light reaching us tonight set out a little over three centuries ago, when Newton was polishing the mirrors of his first reflecting telescope and science began to measure the universe with instruments of its own. Its crisp glow recalls those founding years when Europe started to look at the sky with numbers, not only with wonder.