Mira

VARIABLE STAR · the wonderful

DISTANCE about 300 light yearsCYCLE bright and faint every 11 monthsSPECIAL drags a 13 light year tail

The star that taught us stars can change. Mira slowly swells and shrinks, getting hundreds of times brighter and fainter again roughly every eleven months; centuries ago this earned it the name the wonderful. A space telescope later found something stranger: racing through the galaxy, Mira sheds a glowing tail 13 light years long, like a comet the size of star systems.

🚀 Fly there in the 3D universe

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Mercury's Sun Dance Methuselah (PSR B1620-26 b)Mimas Miranda Mizar and Alcor Mizar Aa All objects in the library