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The URSA main constellation stars can be used to find a smaller brother and sister Ursa Little. ; | Credit: Daisy Dobriyevich Made Canva
Earlier this month, we talked about Ursa Major, The Big Bear, so this week we will look at the little bear, Ursa’s minor. Astronomical Neophytes sometimes mislead the Pleiades stars cluster for small submersion, as the brightest stars of Pleiades resemble a small, distorted dipper.
But in reality, most people have never seen a little bike because most of its stars are too weak to see the sky too light.
The seven stars from which we get a bear are also known as the little dipper. Polaris, North Star, is at the end of the small dipper handle, whose stars are quite weak. The four weakest stars can be inflated with very small lighting of the moonlight or street. The best way to find the way to Polaris is to use the so -called “arrow” stars in Big Dipper, Dubhe and Mrak. Just draw a line, between these two stars and extend it about 5 times, and eventually you will arrive next to Polaris.
Exactly where you see Polaris in your northern sky depends on your latitude. From Minneapolis it stands halfway from the horizon to the top point (called zenith). In the North Pole you will find it directly above the head. Polaris seems to be sitting directly on the horizon at the equator.
When traveling north, North Star rises gradually above the north. When you go south, the star falls below and eventually disappears when you swipe the equator and go to the southern hemisphere.
Heavenly control
In addition to the northern stars, two stars in the Little Dipper bowl are the only easy to see. These two are often referred to as “patrons of the pillar” because they seem to march around Polaris as the Sentra; Closest to the bright stars at the heavenly pole, except Polaris itself. Columbus mentioned these stars in his famous ocean journal and many other navigators found that they were useful for measuring the night and place of the sea.
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The most prominent Guardian is Kochab, a second size star with an orange tint. Another Guardian goes to the old Arabic name – PHERKAD – “dim one of two calves”. PHERKAD is actually dim native to Kochab, shining in the third size. The other two stars that complete the small dipper bowl model are fourth and fifth in size.
So the small dipper’s bowl, which is visible at any hour at any night of most of the year from most northern hemispheres, can be an indicator to assess how dark and transparent your night sky is. For example, if you can easily see all four stars in a bowl, you have good and detailed coatings for yourself. Unfortunately, the spread of light pollution in recent years, only the guardians of most urban and suburban places are usually seen, meaning that the quality of the sky would be correct from the poor.
Interestingly, large and small dippers are arranged so that when one is vertical, the other is upside down. In addition, their handles seem to be in opposite directions. Of course, the biggest dipper is still brighter of them, appearing as a long -term pan, and the little dipper resembles a weak mountain.
In superiority but not the brightest
Polaris is actually a triple star system; The main star is the yellow super -446 light -years, five times more massive, 46 times larger and almost 1300 times more glow as our sun. There is a popular misconception in which many believe that North Star is the brightest star of the sky. However, +1.98 size it actually ranks 47th in brightness. This rating can change in one or two places as Polaris is a Cepheid variable star whose brightness can range from approximately 0.1 in about 4 days.
Polaris remains almost in the same place of heaven all year round, while other stars gather around it. Only the obvious width of about 1.5 full moon separates the Polaris from the rotation point right in the north, around which the stars go daily.
However, due to the Earth’s axis of wobbler (called precession), the celestial pole moves when centuries have passed. Polaris is actually approaching the pole and 2100. March 24 It will be as close as you will ever come, just 27.15 minutes or slightly less than the obvious diameter of the moon. As the Earth’s axes complete one wobbler, they complete 25,800 years, at different times of different stars became a northern star. In fact, the brightest guardian Kochab was the North Star around the beginning of the Iron Age, about 1200 AD. Pr. BC.
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Joe Rao works as an instructor and invited lecturer in New York Hayden Planetarium; He writes about astronomy Natural History MagazineIs it Heaven and telescope and other publications.