hip-49005

Its story

In the Big Dipper, familiar asterism of the northern skies, an orange K-type star beats at about 500 light-years. Its light set out around 1526, in the heart of the Renaissance, when European cartographers were redrawing the planet after the first circumnavigations. Cooler and more golden than the Sun, it radiates that quiet amber tone typical of giants well into their stellar lives.