hip-96840

Its story

Within the eagle Aquila, at an unusually vast distance of 326,200 light-years, throbs a variable blue B-type star whose brilliance rises and falls with a rhythm of its own. Its light set out during the last ice age, when no human being had yet imagined agriculture. Far hotter and more luminous than the Sun, its pulse turns it into a restless beacon, almost a wink that crosses whole eras.