Mizar

Astronomy Without a Telescope

chart

discovery

Mizar has the distinction of being the first-known double, the pairing discovered by G. B. Riccioli in 1650.

meaning

The star’s Arabic name derives from a word meaning “the groin” of the celestial Bear that plods silently around the north celestial pole (the name mistakenly drawn from Merak, in the Dipper’s bowl).

near

Alcor

random

The Solar System is close to its [Orion Arm’s] inner rim, about halfway along the arm’s length, in a relative cavity in the arm’s interstellar medium, known as the Local Bubble.

star of

STARS by Jim Kaler

Mizar (stars.astro.illinois.edu) MIZAR (Zeta Ursae Majoris). One of the most famed stars of the sky, second magnitude (2.06) Mizar, 78 light years away, is the Zeta star of Ursa Major, the Greater Bear, the second star in from the end of the handle of the Big Dipper, and the Dipper’s fourth brightest star.

tagged

Mizar’s and Alcor’s proper motions show they move together, along with most of the other stars of the Big Dipper except Dubhe and Alkaid, as members of the Ursa Major Moving Group, a mostly dispersed group of stars sharing a common birth.

tags

visibility

Found to be double in 1650, Mizar is a prime target for someone with a new telescope, as the components are an easy 14 seconds of arc apart (at least 500 astronomical units), the two taking at least 5000 years to make their orbit about each other.

Wikidata

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q66477109

Wikipedia

Mizar (Wikipedia) Mizar /ˈmaɪzɑːr/ is a second-magnitude star in the handle of the Big Dipper asterism in the constellation of Ursa Major. It has the Bayer designation ζ Ursae Majoris (Latinised as Zeta Ursae Majoris). It forms a well-known naked eye double star with the fainter star Alcor, and is itself a quadruple star system. The Mizar and Alcor system lies about 83 light-years away from the Sun, as measured by the Hipparcos astrometry satellite, and is part of the Ursa Major Moving Group.