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Pole star. A pole star is a visible star that is approximately aligned with the axis of rotation of an astronomical body; that is, a star whose apparent position is close to one of the celestial poles. On Earth, a pole star would lie directly overhead when viewed from the North or the South Pole.
Polaris is the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor (upper right). Big Dipper and Ursa Minor in relation to Polaris. A view of Polaris in a small telescope. Polaris B is separated by 18 arc seconds from the primary star, Polaris A. A 4-day time lapse of Polaris illustrating its Cepheid type variability.
Today, Kochab and its neighbor Pherkad are referred to as the "Guardians of the Pole" (meaning Polaris). [29] On the other hand, Thuban in the constellation Draco, which was the pole star in 3000 BC, is much less conspicuous at magnitude 3.67 (one-fifth as bright as Polaris); today it is invisible in light-polluted urban skies.
The star Polaris, often called either the "Pole Star" or the "North Star", is treated specially due to its proximity to the north celestial pole. When navigating in the Northern Hemisphere , a simple and quick technique can be used with Polaris to determine the observers latitude or, for larger maritime vessels can be used to calculate any ...
Two of its stars, named Dubhe and Merak (α Ursae Majoris and β Ursae Majoris), can be used as the navigational pointer towards the place of the current northern pole star, Polaris in Ursa Minor. Ursa Major, along with asterisms it contains or overlaps, is significant to numerous world cultures, often as a symbol of the north.
σ Octantis (Latinised to Sigma Octantis) is the star's Bayer designation. As the southern hemisphere's pole star it bore the name Polaris Australis, first applied in the 1700s. [12] In 2016, the IAU organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) [13] to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved the name Polaris ...
The move is a way, among other things, to avoid US tariffs on China-made EVs. Polestar, founded in 2017 and spun off from Volvo and parent company China’s Geely in a merger in 2022, will use ...
The north magnetic pole, also known as the magnetic north pole, is a point on the surface of Earth's Northern Hemisphere at which the planet's magnetic field points vertically downward (in other words, if a magnetic compass needle is allowed to rotate in three dimensions, it will point straight down). There is only one location where this ...