Where Is the North Star? How to Find the North Star

The North Star, also known as the Pole Star or Polaris, is an F-class supergiant star four hundred-thirty lightyears from Earth. Polaris is located above Earth’s rotational axis at the North Pole and can help observers navigate north and calculate their latitudinal position in the Northern Hemisphere. Polaris’s size and brightness make it relatively easy to identify with the naked eye.

Finding the North Star requires familiarity with the constellations of Ursa Minor and Ursa Major. Using these constellations, also known as Little Dipper and Big Dipper or Little Bear and Big Bear, you can quickly identify the precise location of Polaris and navigate north:

1. 1. Little Dipper: The North Star forms the far end of the handle portion of the constellation Ursa Minor. (The “dipper” shapes are asterisms, patterns of stars within constellations.) Other stars in this constellation are relatively dim, so using the Little Bear to find the North Star can be challenging unless you are in an area with little or no light pollution and without the excess light of a full or nearly-full moon.
2. 2. Big Dipper: The Big Dipper, or Ursa Major, consists of brighter stars, so using this constellation to find the North Star is easier. After you locate the Big Dipper, imagine a line drawn along the two Pointer stars—also known as Merak and Dubhe—that form the outside of the cup portion of the dipper or the side opposite the curved handle. Extend that imaginary line beyond the dipper, and keep going until you hit an unusually bright star—it’s approximately five times the distance between these two stars. The bright star is Polaris.

As the science of astronomy progresses, there is more information available about Polaris:

1. 1. Polaris is part of a triple star system. What the naked eye perceives as one point of light actually comes from three companion stars. The largest of this triple star system, Polaris A, is a supergiant star, approximately fifty times the diameter of the Sun and two thousand five-hundred times brighter. The smaller two are white-yellow dwarves, known as Polaris Ab and Polaris B. The Hubble space telescope captured the first images of this trio in 2006.
2. 2. Polaris has not always been the North Star. The Earth’s rotation or axial precession changes over time. Approximately fourteen thousand years ago, the Earth’s axis lined up with the star Vega. Due to the gradual shift of the Earth’s axis, the North Star will continue to change.
3. 3. The North Star is only visible in the Northern Hemisphere. Polaris is nearly directly in line with the North Pole. As you head south toward the equator, the star will get progressively lower in the Northern Sky and eventually disappear behind the horizon once you enter the Southern Hemisphere
4. 4. Polaris is a cepheid variable star. Polaris is a cepheid variable star, meaning that its diameter and temperature fluctuate according to a pulsating cycle. Astronomers and scientists use cepheid variable stars to calculate distances between galaxies.

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