hip-83491

Its story

It pulses in Scorpius, the colossal celestial scorpion that rules over the southern summer skies. A variable F-type star, white-yellow and slightly hotter than the Sun, its light swelling and ebbing gently, took some 211 years to reach us: it set out around 1815, when Napoleon was losing Waterloo and the world was entering a new political era. A subtle, shifting glimmer beside the scorpion's stinger.