The AsterNym star registry
Polaris
Polaris: the North Star that never moves
yellow-white · Ursa Minor · α UMi
Every other star wheels across the night. Polaris stays. Sitting almost exactly above Earth's northern axis, it has told travellers which way is north for centuries. The fixed point everything else turns around.
That makes Polaris the dedication for the steadiest person you know: the one who does not move when everything else does.
Real star · Personal dedication · Recorded in the AsterNym registry
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Polaris at a glance
- Constellation
- Ursa Minor
- Other name
- α UMi
- Catalogue number
- HIP 11767
- Distance
- ≈ 433 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 1.98 naked-eye
- Star type
- F7 Ib
- Colour
- yellow-white
- Best seen from
- The far northern sky
- Right ascension
- 02h 31m 49s
- Declination
- +89° 15′ 51″
J2000 catalogue coordinates that can be independently cross-checked against astronomical databases. A planetarium app showing coordinates of date will differ slightly, because proper motion and precession move a star’s apparent position over time.
What kind of star is Polaris?
Polaris is a yellow-white supergiant. Its surface runs about 6,000 to 7,500°C, a shade hotter than the Sun. Colour in a star is a temperature reading rather than a decoration: the hot ones are blue and the cool ones red, the opposite way round to a kitchen tap.
Its colour is not the whole story. A yellow-white star still in the steady part of its life would burn for two to four thousand million years. This one is past that stage, and it is cool at the surface because it has swollen outward, not because it was born this way.
It is a supergiant, which means it has left the stable part of its life and swollen enormously. Put it where the Sun is and its surface would swallow the inner planets. Stars this size do not fade quietly; this one will end as a supernova, and on a human timescale that could be tonight or in a million years.
The light you are looking at is old
Polaris is about 433 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1593. You are not looking at the star as it is. You are looking at the star as it was, and there is no way to see it any other way.
That delay is the part people find hardest and like most. A star is the one thing you can give someone that was already old before either of you was born and will outlast anything else you could have chosen.
It is also one of the brighter stars in the sky, which is why it carries a proper name at all rather than a catalogue number.
Why is Polaris special?
Find the North Star and you have found north, no compass, no map, no signal required. Runaways, sailors and desert travellers have trusted it with their lives.
Polaris is a triple star system, and its leading star is a Cepheid variable, a class of pulsing star astronomers use to measure the scale of the universe.
What does the name Polaris mean?
Polaris is simply Latin: stella polaris, “the pole star.” Its older names say more: Stella Maris, “star of the sea,” and Lodestar, the star that leads.
What could a Polaris dedication represent?
Polaris is especially meaningful for someone who:
- · Is your fixed point when everything spins
- · Has never once let you down
- · Guides without needing to be asked
- · Is the direction you check yourself against
Dedication idea
“For the one who stays, my true north.”
Where can you see Polaris?
It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 1°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 89°N. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 1.98 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Polaris belongs to Ursa Minor, where it is the brightest star.
What does Polaris mean in astrology?
The pole star. The still point the northern sky turns around. The tradition reads it exactly as navigators used it: direction, steadiness, a fixed purpose that others orient by; Robson adds a Saturn–Venus cast of duty carried quietly.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Polaris stands at 28° Gemini at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 18 June in the years around 2000. Fixed-star longitude shifts slowly against the tropical zodiac because of precession, about one degree every seventy-two years, so a natal conjunction must be calculated for the birth year rather than read off this J2000 value or a calendar date.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions. The position and dates are computed.
Dedicate Polaris to someone who matters
A flower fades. A card is eventually put away. A star gives your message a place in the sky.
from$29.95a year
Dedicate Polaris →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Polaris dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Polaris's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Polaris keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Polaris
- What does Polaris mean in astrology?
- The pole star. The still point the northern sky turns around. The tradition reads it exactly as navigators used it: direction, steadiness, a fixed purpose that others orient by; Robson adds a Saturn–Venus cast of duty carried quietly. Projected onto the zodiac, Polaris stands at 28° Gemini, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 18 June.
- Is Polaris the brightest star?
- Polaris shines at magnitude 1.98 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Polaris?
- Polaris is approximately 433 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 433 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Polaris?
- Polaris is the brightest star in Ursa Minor.
- Can everyone see Polaris?
- It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 1°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 89°N. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 1.98 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Polaris an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Polaris keeps its internationally recognised astronomical name. An AsterNym dedication records your personal name and message in the AsterNym registry without changing the star's scientific identity.
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