• Question: What happens if the north star dies

    Asked by Matacton to Camilla, Dan, Katie, Mike, Rhys on 17 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Katie Sparks

      Katie Sparks answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      If the north star (or pole star) dies, then we would no longer have a direct pointer almost directly over our north pole. In the southern hemisphere. there is no “south star” instead, they use a constellation, known as the southern cross, with another pair of stars. If you were to draw lines from them, where they cross is where the South Pole is.
      I’m sure we would find a similar way of finding the north pole.

    • Photo: Camilla Weiss

      Camilla Weiss answered on 17 Jun 2015:

      Did you know that the North star isn’t actually a single star, it’s a multi-star system. The point of light that we see is made up 5 different stars – the main supergiant star, Polaris A, and 4 much samller companion stars. Polaris is the brightest though and if it were to die we probably wouldn’t be able to see the others well enough to use them as a North star. More fun facts: Polaris wasn’t always the North star though! The celestial pole – which is the imaginary axis that the Earth rotates around and which points North or South – actually wobbles over time. It does a sort of rotation, called a precession, every 25,000 years or so. That means whent he Egyptians built the pyramids about 5000 years ago it was a different star and the Romans didn’t have one at all. This also means that even though there isn’t South star now, in a couple of thousand years there will be. Luckily we now have satellites which give us satellite navigation so we won’t be lost even if we lose the North star!

Comments