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Its story

7 Monocerotis is a hot blue B-type star kindled some 872 light-years away, within the body of the celestial Unicorn. More massive and far younger than the Sun, it shines with that sharp, near-violet light that betrays the highest stellar temperatures. The light crossing the eyepiece tonight set out in the depths of the Middle Ages, around the twelfth century —when Europe was raising its first Gothic cathedrals—, travelling almost a millennium to arrive as a blue pinpoint.