Antares

Its story

Antares pulses at the heart of Scorpius, a red supergiant some seven hundred times wider than the Sun. The ancient Greeks named it «the rival of Ares», for its coppery hue rivalled Mars in the night sky to the point of confusion. A nebula of dust surrounds it and reflects its own light back as a faint, almost dreamlike halo. Its brightness shifts slowly, at its own cadence: the light arriving tonight set out around the 15th century, when caravels still searched for a new world.