Jamie Carter is an award-winning reporter and experienced stargazer who covers the night sky, astro-tourism, the northern lights and space exploration. He received the 2023 Popular Media Award from the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division and is the author of A Stargazing Program for Beginners. Writing for Forbes.
Can you find the North Star ? Called Polaris , it’s in exactly the same position every night. It never moves or, at least, it never appears to. That’s because Earth’s northern axis points straight to it, so while all the other stars in the night sky are in different positions throughout the night and the seasons, the position of Polaris never changes.
“The CHARA images revealed large bright and dark spots on the surface of Polaris that changed over time,” said Gail Schaefer, director of the CHARA Array. Polaris is a special kind of star for two reasons. As well as being positioned very close to Earth’s north celestial pole, Polaris is a Cepheid variable, a star that pulsates and changes in brightness in a highly predictable way.
If you know the true brightness of a Cepheid variable star like Polaris — which astronomers do because they know it pulsates every four days — you can use it to measure distances and, ultimately, even infer the universe’s expansion rate.Polaris pulsates over four days as its diameter expands and contracts. But it’s not actually one star. It’s the brightest member of a triple-star system. The research aimed to map the orbit of the close, faint companion that orbits Polaris every 30 years.
North Star What Is The Brightest Star Cepheid Variable
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