Star
Kochab
Kochab is an orange star 131 light-years away, seen as it was 131 years ago, shining 209 times as bright as the Sun.
See it live
It is on the live 3D map, where it really is.
The brightest star in the bowl of the Little Dipper. Around 2467 BCE the Egyptians found true north with a plumb line between it and Mizar.
Key facts
- Distance
- 131 light-years
- Brightness from Earth
- magnitude 2.07
- Spectral type
- K4IIIvar
- Catalogue
- HIP 72607
See it from here
Bright enough to see with your own eyes from a dark place.
How the map draws it
Drawn as a point of light, sized by how bright it looks from where you are — the kind of thing, not this exact one.
Source: HYG Stellar Database v4.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0), Gaia and Hipparcos distances
This page is built from the same records and words as the map's card, and carries no live numbers.