Kochab

Its story

Kochab is an orange giant in Ursa Minor, second in brightness after Polaris and separated from it by barely a fist held at arm's length. Three thousand years ago, when Egyptian priests aligned temples to the celestial north, it was Kochab —not Polaris— that marked the pole. The precession of the equinoxes has shifted it with geological patience; it is still there, 131 light-years away, awaiting its next turn twelve thousand years from now.