for National Geographic News
Published December 4, 2012
The North Star has been a guiding light for countless generations of navigators. But a new study reveals that its distance to Earth may have been grossly overestimated.
In fact, the North Star—also called Polaris—is 30 percent closer to our solar system than previously thought, at about 323 light-years away, according to an international team who studied the star's light output.
Using Russia's 6-Meter Telescope, the researchers were able to calculate the North Star's distance from our solar system by analyzing its spectrum of light and obtaining data on its temperature and changes in intrinsic brightness over time.