Eps-2

Its story

Epsilon-2 Arae is a yellow-white F-type star a mere 89 light-years away, in the southern Altar that Mediterranean peoples pictured as the slab on which the gods sealed their oaths. It is a relatively close neighbour of the Sun, only slightly hotter and burning at a marginally quicker pace. When its light set out, humans were just beginning to probe the atmosphere with weather balloons; on arrival at our telescopes, it still serves as a precise reference for measuring the brightness of other stars in the solar neighbourhood.