hip-25813

Its story

32 Orionis is a blue-white luminary catalogued by Flamsteed near the Hunter's feet, beyond the lower edge of the Belt asterism. Its B-class spectrum and magnitude 4.2 hint at a surface far hotter than the Sun, pouring ultraviolet light onto neighbouring interstellar clouds. The photons reaching us tonight set out from its atmosphere roughly three centuries ago, long before astronomical photography existed.