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Its story

30 Geminorum is an orange K-type giant burning quietly some 289 light-years away, on the flank of the Twins. Its cool atmosphere —thousands of degrees below the Sun— gives it the amber tone that only small telescopes can resolve. The light now crossing Earth's atmosphere set out while Newton was still publishing his first optical laws; it takes nearly three centuries to arrive and returns each winter among the most visited northern constellations.