Nu

Its story

Nu Phoenicis shines in the constellation of the Phoenix, the mythical bird reborn from fire that Dutch navigators sketched into the southern sky at the close of the sixteenth century. It is a yellow-white F-type star only 49.3 light-years away, near enough to be counted a neighbour. It belongs to the spectral family of many stars surveyed for planets: warm, steady, of mass close to the Sun's and calm enough to preserve rocky discs.