Maasym

Its story

Maasym comes from the Arabic «al-miʿṣam», «the wrist», the joint that holds the club in the mythical figure of Hercules, the hero always portrayed with his twelve labours unfolding across the northern sky. It is an orange giant 369 light-years away, swollen by advanced stellar old age and considerably cooler than the Sun despite its brightness. When this light set out, the newly invented pendulum clocks were marking seconds with precision for the first time in the courts of Europe.