The AsterNym star registry
Zeta Ursae Minoris
Zeta Ursae Minoris: the white star of Ursa Minor
white · Ursa Minor · ζ UMi
Zeta Ursae Minoris is a white star, burning hotter than our own Sun in the constellation Ursa Minor, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 4.29 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Zeta Ursae Minoris is not. Some IAU-recognised names are ancient; others were adopted by the IAU only recently. Either way, the star already has a scientific identity, and a dedication attaches a human story to it.
Real star · Personal dedication · Recorded in the AsterNym registry
See what a dedicated page looks like: preview
Zeta Ursae Minoris at a glance
- Constellation
- Ursa Minor
- Other name
- ζ UMi
- Catalogue number
- HIP 77055
- Distance
- ≈ 380 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 4.29 naked-eye
- Star type
- A3 V
- Colour
- white
- Best seen from
- The far northern sky
- Right ascension
- 15h 44m 03s
- Declination
- +77° 47′ 41″
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 Zeta Ursae Minoris?
Zeta Ursae Minoris is a white main-sequence star. Its surface runs around 7,500 to 10,000°C, hot enough to look white or blue-white to the eye. 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.
These are the classic bright white stars. Sirius and Vega are both this kind, and they are the reason people describe stars as white when most of the galaxy's stars are actually red and too faint to see.
A star of this class gets roughly a thousand million years, a tenth of what the Sun gets.
It is a main-sequence star, which despite the word dwarf simply means it is in the long stable middle of its life, fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun is doing now.
The light you are looking at is old
The light arriving from Zeta Ursae Minoris tonight left in about 1646, some 380 years ago. Everything that has happened since, every person you have heard of from the last few centuries, happened while it was in transit.
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 comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
What does the name Zeta Ursae Minoris mean?
In some Arabic star charts it is listed as أخفى الفرقدين ʼakhfā al-farqadayn, meaning "the dimmer of the two calves", and paired with η Ursae Minoris as ʼanwar al-farqadayn, "the brighter of the two calves".
Name origin from English Wikipedia. AsterNym does not invent an etymology where none is recorded, and most stars in this catalogue have none: they carry modern names, or a catalogue designation and nothing older.
What could a Zeta Ursae Minoris dedication represent?
Zeta Ursae Minoris is especially meaningful for someone who:
- · Deserves something older than any gift shop
- · Marks a beginning, an anniversary or a promise
- · Is remembered every time you look up
- · Has a light you want recorded somewhere permanent
Dedication idea
“For the one I think of when I find Ursa Minor in the sky.”
Where can you see Zeta Ursae Minoris?
It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 12°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 78°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.29 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
Zeta Ursae Minoris belongs to Ursa Minor.
What does Zeta Ursae Minoris mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Zeta Ursae Minoris, and we don’t invent lore where none exists. What astrology can still read is the star’s real position, below.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Zeta Ursae Minoris stands at 27° Cancer at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 17 July 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 Zeta Ursae Minoris 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 Zeta Ursae Minoris →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Zeta Ursae Minoris dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Zeta Ursae Minoris's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Zeta Ursae Minoris keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Zeta Ursae Minoris
- What does Zeta Ursae Minoris mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Zeta Ursae Minoris. Projected onto the zodiac, Zeta Ursae Minoris stands at 27° Cancer, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 17 July.
- Is Zeta Ursae Minoris the brightest star?
- Zeta Ursae Minoris shines at magnitude 4.29 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Zeta Ursae Minoris?
- Zeta Ursae Minoris is approximately 380 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 380 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Zeta Ursae Minoris?
- Zeta Ursae Minoris is part of Ursa Minor.
- Can everyone see Zeta Ursae Minoris?
- It is a deep-northern star: easy from Europe, North America and northern Asia, but it never rises for observers south of about latitude 12°S. It passes directly overhead at latitude 78°N. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 4.29 it is a naked-eye star only under a dark sky, binoculars make it certain.
- Is dedicating Zeta Ursae Minoris an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Zeta Ursae Minoris 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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