Kochab

Kochab holds the Beta designation of Ursa Minor, making it the second-ranked star by Bayer letter in the Little Bear, after Polaris. An orange K-type giant, it has a colour index of 1.465 that reflects its cool, reddened light, well toward the red end of the range spanned by these bright stars. Kochab appears at apparent magnitude 2.07 and lies about 131 light-years from the Solar System; its absolute magnitude of −0.95 points to a luminosity well above solar levels. It occupies the bowl of the Little Dipper, the asterism traced by the brighter stars of Ursa Minor, in the far northern circumpolar sky, where it remains visible throughout the year from mid-northern latitudes.