Tau

Its story

A yellow giant in Leo, already twenty-five times the Sun's radius and three hundred times its luminosity, settled onto the red giant branch after burning through the hydrogen in its core. Its light takes 562 years to reach us: it left when Europe was barely acquainted with the printing press. Sitting close to the ecliptic, the Moon occults it on schedule every so often — a small astronomical ceremony in which the satellite's shadow crosses its disc, month after month.