hip-84402

Its story

In the coiled body of Ophiuchus shines an orange K-class giant, lying some two hundred and ninety light-years away. The coppery light that now defines it set out around 1735, when Linnaeus was publishing his Systema Naturae and the European Enlightenment was reorganising the knowledge of the world. It is an ageing star, much broader than the Sun though cooler at the surface, in that serene phase in which giants shine with an almost motionless amber.