Sun
The closest thing the Sun has to a North polar star is HD 176668, a faint (magnitude 6.50) star in the constellation Draco. It is about 2.3 degrees off the Sun's polar axis. A better choice for putative Sun dwellers, assuming they could see the sky, would be δ Draconis, which is much brighter (magnitude 3.07; it is the fourth brightest star in that constellation) although 4.3 degrees off. The Sun's South polar star turns out to be 34 Carinae, also a faint (magnitude 6.03) star, 2.2 degrees off, with the bright star α Pictoris (magnitude 3.24), 4.1 degrees away, as competing choice.
Read more about this topic: Extraterrestrial Skies
Famous quotes containing the word sun:
“That if a dancer stayed his hungry foot
It seemed the sun and moon were in the fruit:”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“your bare feet on the floors of silence
speak in rhymed stanzas to the furniture,
solemn chests of drawers and heavy chairs
blinking in the sun you have let in!”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in MudvilleMighty Casey has struck
out.”
—Ernest Lawrence Thayer (18631940)