hip-16341

Its story

17 Eridani lies along the winding course of Eridanus, one of the sky's longest constellations, snaking from the feet of Orion down toward the southern horizon. It is a blue B-type star with a fiercely hot surface and a brightness that keeps it visible to the unaided eye despite its distance of more than four hundred light-years. The photons reaching us tonight set out when Galileo had only just begun pointing his telescope at the night sky.