hip-63340

Its story

In Draco, the long celestial serpent coiling around the north pole, pulses an orange K-class giant whose light set out around 1484, when Diogo Cão was sailing up the Congo and the Portuguese were skirting Africa on the way to the Indian Ocean. Cooler than the Sun yet far larger, it radiates a coppery, steady glow. It is a mature star moving on in silence, fit for the deep northern sky where the patient gaze always ends up rewarded.