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Its story

In Lepus, at Orion's feet, beats a variable red giant of M type whose light reaches us after more than twelve hundred years of travel. It set out deep in the early Middle Ages, when Charlemagne had just been crowned emperor and the Christian kingdoms were beginning to reorder Europe. Far cooler and far larger than the Sun, it gives off a deep crimson tone and slowly changes brightness, as if breathing. It is an old heart of red fire hidden in the timid figure of the hare, too discreet to dazzle yet too ancient to forget.