Aphelion

"First it shimmered... then it crawled... then it screamed."

- Shuro Chi, quoting the last words of an unnamed Techeun killed by the Aphelion.

The Aphelion is an entity or race of entities known to the Awoken and Calus' Loyalists.

Overview
Very little has been revealed about the nature of the Aphelion, but it has been stated that they are extremely dangerous, malevolent and stealthy. They have claimed the lives of many Awoken, including the inhabitants of the RSS Amestris and three Techeuns. Sjur Eido is the only Awoken known to have survived an Aphelion attack.

Paladin Pavel Nolg reported seeing a "glowing creature" on the exterior of his ship Retribution shortly before executing an NLS jump; this sighting was filed along with the Amestris incident as being related to the Aphelion.

They appear to be extremely radioactive, a trait which apparently led one Awoken on the Amestris to draw a connection between the Aphelion and the Core That Stalked, an entity recorded by the Marasenna as having been involved in the fissioneers of the Distributary's early experiments with nuclear reactors.

The Lost Sector known as Aphelion's Rest presumably has some connection to the Aphelion, perhaps being a burial site.

In the Chronicon, the Loyalist Scribe Shagac refers to the Aphelion as a predator with "the power to devastate whole worlds in the blink of an eye." Information regarding the Aphelion and its abilities is apparently kept within Athenaeum World X.

The Lore tab for Star-Eater Scales recounts an incident in which an Eliskni pilot's ship malfunctioned shortly after he witnessed a trail of glowing blue particles through his ship's viewport; this event is similar to other recorded encounters with Aphelion, which have involved blue lights and creatures latching onto the outside of ships.

Trivia

 * The term "aphelion" denotes the point in which an orbiting body is farthest from the star which it orbits. As such, the use of this term to name the Aphelion may suggest that it is an entity far removed from the Light, and closely aligned (or perhaps even synonymous) with the Darkness.

List of appearances

 * Destiny 2: Forsaken
 * Season of Opulence