Big Dipper: New! Improved! Now With More Stars!

The Big Dipper just got bigger.

Astronomers announce that what is perhaps the best-known and most recognizable constellation in our hemisphere, the Big Dipper, contains one more star than we previously thought.

ScienceDaily reports that an international research team composed of astronomers from the American Museum of Natural History, the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, the California Institute of Technology and NASA have determined that one of the stars forming the Big Dipper includes a smaller twin, not visible to us with the naked eye, and only now found through use of a newly developed calculation technique.

The location in question is the first star in from the tip of the handle, which actually was already known to be two stars, Alcor and Mizar. These two are distinguishable with excellent eyesight and certainly with the help of a modest telescope. The team has found, through detecting very subtle oscillations in the position of Alcor, that it is being orbited by a smaller twin star that they have named Alcor B.

Photo courtesy of Gh5046, via Wikimedia Commons