Nu

Its story

It is the best-known star of its entire class: a hot blue point in the river Eridanus whose internal oscillations have been deciphered more thoroughly than those of any other Beta Cephei variable. It pulses on at least fourteen distinct frequencies — a seismic orchestra that astronomers have tracked in multi-site campaigns to reconstruct its nuclear core. The light reaching us now set out around the 14th century, and arrives after 675 years across the void of a neighbouring galactic arm.