Nu

Its story

Nu Pavonis is a blue B-type star in the Peacock about 439 light-years away, whose brightness flickers with subtle variations. It belongs to the brood of hot suns that adorn this relatively young southern constellation, traced in the sixteenth century by Dutch navigators Pieter Keyser and Frederick de Houtman as they first charted the deep southern skies. Its fine, bluish light travels from a region of the firmament where almost every bright star received a modern name, far removed from the classical tradition of the north.