Mu

Its story

μ Normae dwells within the Square, a southern constellation invented in the eighteenth century. It is a blue supergiant about 3,260 light-years away, with 30 times the Sun's mass and a luminosity estimated between a quarter million and a million Suns —among the brightest stars known. Its brightness drifts slowly between magnitude 4.87 and 4.98: an α Cygni variable, kin to Deneb in the way it breathes.