hip-34975

Its story

Monoceros again, and again a discreet star among its folds: this orange sun, far more distant than the previous one, took about 1294 years for its light to reach us. It set out when Charlemagne was building his Carolingian empire on the ruins of the old Roman order, trying to unite the West under a single crown. K-type stars like this — wide and long of pulse — are unwitnessed witnesses to how many human empires can rise and fall in the time their light simply needs, to cross the void.