3 posts
The photons entering your eyes right now left Regulus in 1946. The Heart of the Lion spins at 96.5% of its breakup velocity, holding itself together at the edge of self-destruction for a quarter of a billion years. Every civilization that observed this star independently called it king. June 28-July 7: claim your sovereignty and discover what it costs to hold it.
The photons entering your eyes right now left Canopus in 1715. This yellow-white supergiant is the second brightest star in all the sky, yet most people in the Northern Hemisphere have never seen it. Named for a helmsman who died mid-voyage, still used by NASA spacecraft to fix their orientation in space, Canopus is a navigator star in the keel of a legendary ship.
The photons entering your eyes right now left Sirius in 2017. The brightest star in the night sky earns that title not through raw luminosity but through proximity, and the lesson it teaches about power has governed civilizations for three thousand years.