Astronomers from the BRITE (BRight Target Explorer) Constellation project and Ritter Observatory have discovered a repeating one-per-cent spike in the light of a very massive star which could change our understanding of such stars. Iota Orionis is a binary star system and is easily visible with the naked eye, being the brightest star in the constellation Orion’s sword. Its unique variability, reported in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, was discovered using the world’s smallest astronomical space satellites, referred to as “nanosats”. “As the first functional nanosatellite astronomy mission, the BRITE-Constellation is at the vanguard of this coming space revolution,” said Canadian BRITE-Constellation principal investigator Gregg Wade, of Royal Military College of Canada, Ont.