- Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (Arabic: الجمهورية الإسلامية الموريتانية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-Islāmīyah al-Mūrītānīyah), is a sovereign country in Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. By land area Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and 28th-largest in the world; 90% of its territory is in the Sahara. Most of its population of some 4.3 million lives in the temperate south of the country, with roughly a third concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, on the Atlantic coast.
- Alkalurops (stars.astro.illinois.edu)
ALKALUROPS (Mu Bootis). The naming of stars sometimes seems random. Some bright stars within a constellation will carry no proper names, while other much fainter ones do (the classic case that of Gamma Cassiopeiae). In Bootes, the Herdsman, the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma stars carry the proper names Arcturus, Nekkar, and Seginus. Third magnitude Delta has none, but then we can reach all the way to fourth magnitude (4.31) Mu Bootis, which is called by the jaw-breaking name Alkalurops.
