Mizar
Blue-white multiple star · Zeta Ursae Majoris
Famous naked-eye double with Alcor; first telescopic and first spectroscopic double discovered
Mizar sits in the bend of the Big Dipper's handle and forms a celebrated naked-eye pair with the fainter Alcor, long used as a test of eyesight. Mizar holds a place in history as the first double star seen through a telescope and later the first identified spectroscopic binary; it is itself a system of four stars.
Illustration generated from temperature, not a photograph
2.2 ☉
mass (the Sun = 1)
33 ×
as bright as the Sun
9,000 K
surface · white star
2 R☉
radius (the Sun = 1)
83 ly
from Earth
2.0
apparent magnitude
It pours out about 33 times the Sun’s light. Its light has been travelling 83 years to reach us, so you see Mizar as it was 83 years ago.
Source · View on Wikidata
It lives in
Milky Way
Barred spiral galaxy.
Other notable stars in Milky Way
Eta CarinaeLuminous blue variableAlnilamBlue supergiantVY Canis MajorisRed hypergiantAlnitakHot blue supergiantDenebBlue-white supergiantMintakaHot blue giant multiple star
Stars of similar brightness
RasalhagueWhite giant (rapid rotator)31 ×VegaBlue-white main-sequence star40 ×FomalhautWhite main-sequence star17 ×DenebolaWhite main-sequence star15 ×AltairWhite main-sequence star11 ×ProcyonYellow-white subgiant6.9 ×
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→