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The position of the star lies less than 1° away from the north celestial pole, making it the current northern pole star. The stable position of the star in the Northern Sky makes it useful for navigation. [17] As the closest Cepheid variable its distance is used as part of the cosmic distance ladder.
A star chart of the entire Northern Sky, centered on the north celestial pole. The northern celestial hemisphere, also called the Northern Sky, is the northern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies north of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere appears to rotate westward around a polar axis due to Earth's rotation.
Capella was the brightest star in the night sky from 210,000 years ago to 160,000 years ago, at about −1.8 in apparent magnitude. At −1.1, Aldebaran was brightest before this period; it and Capella were situated rather close to each other in the sky and approximated boreal pole stars at the time. [35] Building J (foreground) at Monte Albán
Alioth is the brightest star of Ursa Major and the 33rd-brightest in the sky, with a magnitude of 1.76. It is also the brightest of the chemically peculiar Ap stars , magnetic stars whose chemical elements are either depleted or enhanced, and appear to change as the star rotates.
Due to the precession of the equinoxes (as well as the stars' proper motions), the role of North Star has passed from one star to another in the remote past, and will pass in the remote future. In 3000 BC, the faint star Thuban in the constellation Draco was the North Star, aligning within 0.1° distance from the celestial pole, the closest of ...
Of particular note among these stars are "the dog star" Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, and four stars of the easily identified constellation Orion. Equatorial stars of the western hemisphere The equatorial region of the celestial sphere's western hemisphere includes 13 navigational stars from Gienah in the constellation Corvus to Markab ...
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The north and south celestial poles are the two points in the sky where Earth's axis of rotation, indefinitely extended, intersects the celestial sphere. The north and south celestial poles appear permanently directly overhead to observers at Earth's North Pole and South Pole, respectively.