Star
Kochab
Orange star · K4IIIvar
β Ursae Minoris · Ursa Minor
Shown in its true colour — like most stars, it is too far away to photograph as more than a point of light.
Kochab, Bayer designation Beta Ursae Minoris, is the brightest star in the bowl of the Little Dipper asterism, and only slightly fainter than Polaris, the northern pole star and brightest star in Ursa Minor. Kochab is 16 degrees from Polaris and has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.08. The distance to this star from the Sun can be deduced from the parallax measurements made during the Hipparcos mission, yielding a value of 130.9 light-years.
Description from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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Key facts
Distance
~131 light-years
Apparent mag.
+2.07
Spectral type
K4IIIvar
Luminosity
208 × Sun
Absolute mag.
−0.95
Catalogue
HIP 72607
Spectral type
K4IIIvar
True colour from its B–V index (1.47): a surface around 3800 K.
Did you know
- Kochab is also known as β Ursae Minoris.
- Its spectral type K4IIIvar marks it as a orange star.
- It lies in the constellation Ursa Minor.
