hip-2240

Its story

In the southern constellation of Phoenix burns a red giant 375 light-years away, whose light set out when Galileo was facing the second Inquisitorial proceedings over the heliocentric system. Its cool atmosphere radiates a deep red, sign of a star that has exhausted part of its hydrogen and is swelling in maturity. It glows quietly in a mythic bird reborn from its ashes — a fitting metaphor for a star living through its final ages.