hip-99770

Its story

29 Cygni inhabits a rich stretch of the Swan, along the long axis that traces the bird in mid-flight across the night. It is a white A-type variable star about 139 light-years away —close enough for the ESA Hipparcos mission to have measured its luminous pulse with exquisite precision. Its light, dispatched in the first half of the 20th century, arrives today with the calm heartbeat of a young sun.