hip-82028

Its story

On the starry shoulder of Hercules shines a red M-class giant, cool and dilated, lying more than four hundred and fifty light-years away. The ruby light that now describes it set out at the height of the Renaissance, when Galileo was aiming his spyglass at the Jovian moons and European astronomy was beginning to forget Ptolemy's sky. Its deep red — closer to embers than to flame — betrays a star far advanced in its evolution, much wider than the Sun yet much colder.