Meissa

Its story

Meissa marks the head of Orion the hunter, one of the few O-type stars accessible to the human eye —so hot its surface tops 35,000 degrees. At 1,098 light-years, it lights up a diffuse nebula that surrounds it like a faint blue halo. Its Arabic name «al-maysān» means «the shining» or «the majestic»; when you see it, know that it belongs to the handful of blue giants destined to end their lives in supernova.