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Its story

73 Ursae Majoris is an M-type red giant 417 light-years away, a star at the twilight of its life whose surface temperature is well below the Sun's. It shares the sky with the famous seven stars of the Plough, though it lies outside the asterism, lost in the rest of the Bear's vast body. Its warm reddish glow is the signature of a swollen star that will one day return its outer layers to space.