hip-96556

Its story

42 Aquilae shines from just 105 light-years away, an intimate distance in stellar terms, within the Eagle that embraces the summer Milky Way. It is an F-type star, slightly hotter and whiter than the Sun, and its closeness means the light seen tonight left it around the turn of the 20th to 21st century. It belongs to the immediate solar neighbourhood —that sphere of a few hundred light-years containing the best-studied stars.