hip-84949

Its story

In the energetic body of Hercules shines this yellow-white F-type star. Its light set out around 241 years ago, near 1785, when William Herschel was publishing his first map of the Milky Way drawn from star counts. It is a variable star: it oscillates slightly, as if breathing, the result of inner pulsations. Slightly hotter and more luminous than the Sun, it reminds us that even seemingly quiet stars have their own music, a secret vibration that astronomers have learned to hear.