hip-85048

Its story

In the tail of Scorpius, beside the heart of the summer sky, burns an orange giant 369 light-years away. Its light set out as Vermeer was painting in Delft and the Dutch Golden Age was crystallising into luminous interiors and maps of the world. A class-K sun, cooler than ours but swollen in its maturity, it leaves an amber glow that blends with the deep red of Antares and the hot blues of the nearby cluster.