hip-35127

Its story

Within the unicorn Monoceros, beside the great stellar nurseries of Orion, glows an orange K-type star 395 light-years away. Its light set out around 1631, when Pierre Gassendi was observing the first transit of Mercury across the solar disc ever recorded by science. Cooler and more mature than the Sun, its surface hovers near 4,500 degrees and its coppery tone mingles with the neighbouring glow of the nebulae.