Epsilon Ursae Majoris

"Alioth" redirects here. For the free software development service, see Alioth (Debian).

Epsilon Ursae Majoris

Alioth in Ursa Major (circled).
Observation data Epoch J2000      Equinox J2000
Constellation	Ursa Major
Right ascension	12h 54m 01.74959s
Declination	+55° 57′ 35.3627″
Apparent magnitude (V)	1.77
Characteristics
Spectral type	A1III-IVp kB9
U−B color index	+0.02
B−V color index	-0.02
Variable type	α2-CVn
Astrometry
Radial velocity (Rv)	-9.3 km/s
Proper motion (μ)	RA: +111.91 mas/yr Dec.: -8.24 mas/yr
Parallax (π)	39.51 ± 0.20 mas
Distance	82.6 ± 0.4 ly (25.3 ± 0.1 pc)
Absolute magnitude (MV)	–0.2
Details
Mass	2.91 M☉
Radius	4.2 ± 0.2 R☉
Luminosity	108 L☉
Surface gravity (log g)	3.5 cgs
Temperature	10,800 K
Metallicity [Fe/H]	+0.00 dex
Rotational velocity (v sin i)	33 km/s
Other designations
Alioth, Allioth, Aliath, ε Ursae Majoris, ε UMa, Epsilon UMa, 77 Ursae Majoris, BD+56°1627, FK5 483, GC 17518, HD 112185, HIP 62956, HR 4905, PPM 33769, SAO 28553.
Database references
SIMBAD	data

Epsilon Ursae Majoris (Epsilon UMa, ε Ursae Majoris, ε UMa) is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Major (despite its Bayer designation being merely "epsilon"), and at magnitude 1.76 is the thirty-first brightest star in the sky. It has the traditional name Alioth. It is the star in the tail of the bear closest to its body, and thus the star in the handle of the Big Dipper (Plough) closest to the bowl. It is also a member of the large and diffuse Ursa Major moving group. Historically, the star was frequently used in celestial navigation in the maritime trade, because it is listed as one of the 57 navigational stars.

Peculiarities

Book plate by Sydney Hall depicting Ursa Major's stars

According to Hipparcos, Alioth is 81 light years (25 parsecs) from Earth. Its spectral type is A1p; the "p" stands for peculiar, as the spectrum of its light is characteristic of an Alpha2 Canum Venaticorum variable. Alioth, as a representative of this type, may harbor two interacting processes. First, the star's strong magnetic field separating different elements in the star's hydrogen 'fuel'. In addition, a rotation axis at an angle to the magnetic axis may be spinning different bands of magnetically sorted elements into the line of sight between Alioth and the Earth. The intervening elements react differently at different frequencies of light as they whip in and out of view, causing Alioth to have very strange spectral lines that fluctuate over a period of 5.1 days. The kB9 suffix to the spectral type indicates that the calcium K line is present and representative of a B9 spectral type even though the rest of the spectrum indicates A1.

With Alioth, the rotational and magnetic axes are at almost 90 degrees to one another. Darker (denser) regions of chromium form a band at right angles to the equator.

A recent study suggests Alioth's 5.1-day variation may be due to a substellar object of about 14.7 Jupiter masses in an eccentric orbit (e=0.5) with an average separation of 0.055 astronomical units.

Alioth has a relatively weak magnetic field, 15 times weaker than α CVn, but it is still 100 times stronger than that of the Earth.

Name and etymology

• The traditional name Alioth comes from the Arabic alyat (fat tail of a sheep).
• This star as Añgiras, one of the Seven Rishis.
• In Chinese, 北斗 (Běi Dǒu), meaning Northern Dipper, refers to an asterism consisting of ε Ursae Majoris, α Ursae Majoris, β Ursae Majoris, γ Ursae Majoris, δ Ursae Majoris, ζ Ursae Majoris and η Ursae Majoris. Consequently, ε Ursae Majoris itself is known as 北斗五 (Běi Dǒu wu, English: the Fifth Star of Northern Dipper) and 玉衡 (Yù Héng, English: Star of Jade Sighting-Tube).

Namesakes

USS Allioth (AK-109) was a United States Navy Crater class cargo ship named after the star.

See also

• Stars and planetary systems in fiction

References

1. ^{^}  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: