Residents of Russia can watch a bright star in the sky every cloudless night. She is the first to rise to the firmament and the longest to resist the morning sun, shining. This is the North Star - a guide for sailors and travelers.
Its. Polar
Polaris is a white supergiant located in the constellation Ursa Minor. This constellation, known to almost everyone since childhood, is located directly above the North Pole. With such an arrangement, the location of the North Star in the sky is practically unchanged, therefore, for a long time, it has served as a reference point for travelers and sailors.
The North Star is incredibly bright, and it is easy to recognize it, you just have to find the constellation Ursa Minor in the sky, take a closer look at the handle of the bucket. The very beginning of the constellation is the very Pole Star. It is convenient to navigate by this star because its direction literally coincides with the direction to the north. Such orientation is possible only in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Southern Hemisphere does not have its own pole star.
Legendary star
There are many legends about the Polar Star. Different peoples of the world will definitely have their own. They became interested in her for a long time, the Pole Star served as an object of attention and admiration. In the myths of the Indians, Arabs, Greeks, Mexicans, there are references to this heavenly body, invariably surrounded by mysteries and greatness.
These legends explain its immobility, because all the stars in the firmament are displaced during the night, except for this one. In fact, its immobility is simply explained, because it is not the stars that move around, but our Earth when it rotates. From this, we can observe the movement of the starry sky, but there is a place in the firmament where this does not happen - this is the axis of rotation of the planet, and the North Star is located above it.
star system
The North Star, whose pulsating light is so well known, is actually a whole stellar system of three stars. In the center of this system is the Polar A supergiant, which is 2000 times brighter than our Sun. The system also includes two smaller stars - Polar B, located at some distance and Polar P, located in close proximity to Polar A, so that it was not possible to see it for quite a long time.
The age of Polaris and its surrounding stars, according to research, is about 80 million years.
Presumably, these stars and a few more distant and not included in the system are the remnants of an open cluster.
