hip-22913

Its story

In splendid Orion, beside the most famous stars of the winter sky, a blue B-type star burns about 364 light years away. Its light departed around 1662, the year the Royal Society of London was founded and modern science gained one of its institutional pillars. Far hotter than the Sun and of intense bluish-white, it fits into that fellowship of young and powerful stars that gives the constellation its unmistakable character. It shines quietly near the hunter, stitched into the great stellar tapestry.