The Big Dipper is visible to the naked eye, how far is it from us? Why is it said that the Big Dipper light came from a hundred years ago?
When we look up at the sky at night, if the weather is clear, we will see more than 3,000 stars, some of them are bright and dazzling, and some are dim and twinkling, all of which are related to their distance from the earth and their actual brightness. to decide. For example, we are familiar with the Big Dipper, Polaris, Sirius and Cowherd and Vega. Without exception, these naked-eye stars are all in the Milky Way and are located relatively close to the solar system. The most iconic of the stars in the sky is the Big Dipper. The special arrangement and shape of these seven stars has attracted attention from a long time ago. Because the Big Dipper appears in different positions at night in different seasons, and the orientation also changes, when the east of the bucket is spring, the south of the bucket is summer, the west of the bucket is autumn, and the north of the bucket is winter. Which stars are the Big Dipper and how far are they from us? The Big Dipper is the seven bright stars visible to the naked eye. They are reflected on the background of the starry sky. Starting from the handle, they are Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianji, Tianquan, Yuheng, Kaiyang, and fluctuating light. There are also binary stars whose companions are dim and invisible to the naked eye. In fact, these bright stars in the night sky seem to be indiscriminately "placed" on the background of the starry sky, as if they are on a plane, but they are actually far away from each other, and the distance from the earth is also different. In other words, what we see from the earth is the Big Dipper, but these seven stars are not related in any way, and they are not close and have no similar properties, but we bundle them together according to their shapes. 01. Tianshu (Dubhe) In ancient China, Tianshu was called Greedy Wolf Star, and now it is α Uma A (α Uma A) in Ursa Major. Among the Big Dippers, it is the farthest from us at 123 light-years. The second brightest of the seven stars, but already in the twilight of life, is an orange hold. 02. Merak was called a giant star in ancient China, and is now called β UMa. The distance from us is 89 light-years. The mass of Tianxuan is 2.7 times that of the sun. Because of its core Most of the hydrogen nuclei in the area have completed nuclear fusion, and can only rely on the fusion of hydrogen nuclei outside the nucleus to generate energy, so they belong to subgiant stars, and they are approaching the end of their lives. 03. In ancient China, Phecda called it the Lu Cun star, and it was also named the Ursa Major γ star A (γ Uma A), which is relatively faint among the seven stars, 83 light-years away from us. A main-sequence star with a larger mass and volume. 04. Megrez called it Wenqu Star in ancient China, also known as Delta Ursa Major (δ Uma), which is about 80 light years away from us. It is often heard in the works that "Wenquxing goes down to the world", which means that a person's literary talent is extraordinary! 05. Yuheng (Alioth) was called Lianzhen star in ancient China, also known as ε Ursa Major (ε Uma), 82 light-years away from the earth, because it is relatively bright, it has also become one of the 57 navigation stars that the ancients sailed at sea , used to guide the direction. 06. Kaiyang is called Wuquxing and Wenquxing in ancient China. It is also called Ursa Major. It is 78.2 light-years away from us. Due to the long distance, we regard it as a star. In fact, there are six stars, collectively referred to as "Kaiyang Double Star", in which Kaiyang is a quadruple star system, and Kaiyang Zengyi, which is 0.28 light-years away from Kaiyang, is a double star system, so it is a "4+2" structure as a whole. 07. In ancient China, Yaoguang was called the meaning of breaking the army star and killing it. It is a very young star, which was formed only 10 million years ago, and it has not even formed in the age of dinosaurs. Yaoguang Star is about 102 light-years away from us, and it is a star with a mass and volume larger than that of the Sun. Why is it said that the Big Dipper light came from 100 years ago? Of course, this statement is not particularly accurate. The distance between the seven members of the Big Dipper and us is 78-124 light-years. The Yaoguang star is about 102 light-years away from us, and its starlight came from 102 years ago. There is a saying before: the stars we see with the naked eye are not what they are now, but what they used to be. Even though the speed of light is fast, there are specific values, and their flight in a vacuum also takes time. For example, when we see the moon, it takes about a second for the moonlight to reach the earth, and the sun we see is what it looked like eight and a half minutes ago. So do a thought experiment, if the sun suddenly disappears, this event must pass eight and a half minutes before "happening", so in a sense we look up at the stars as they used to be. Then the Big Dipper is no exception. The Yaoguang star is about 100 light-years away from us, which means that its light came from 100 years ago, and what we see is what it looked like before. Text/Science Black Hole, picture source network intrusion and deletion.