hip-35393

Its story

On the starry stern of the ship Argo blazes a white A-type star. Its light put to sea four hundred and sixty-three years ago, when Mercator was drawing the projection that would order every nautical chart to come. Hotter than the Sun, it pours a clean, steady white, like a lantern fixed on the horizon. To see it is to revisit the century that taught the world to plot straight courses between distant ports.