Tau Ceti, Latinized from τ Ceti, is a single star in the constellation Cetus that is spectrally similar to the Sun, although it has only about 78% of the Sun's mass. At a distance of just under 12 light-years from the Solar System, it is a relatively nearby star and the closest solitary G-class star. The star appears stable, with little stellar variation, and is metal-deficient relative to the Sun.
Tau Ceti could have been a search target for the canceled Terrestrial Planet Finder
Cetus is a constellation, sometimes called 'the whale' in English. The Cetus was a sea monster in Greek mythology which both Perseus and Heracles needed to slay. Cetus is in the region of the sky that contains other water-related constellations: Aquarius, Pisces and Eridanus.
Cetus annotated with lines (a "stick figure") from a latitude further north (north of its declination), above a horizon, in conditions ideal for observation.
Messier 77 spiral galaxy - HST (Hubble Space Telescope).
The spiral galaxy NGC 298 basks in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 298 lies around 89 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus, and appears isolated in this image — only a handful of distant galaxies and foreground stars accompany the lonely galaxy.
An alike depiction from Celestial Atlas (A. Jamieson) (1822)
