Why is the North Star the biggest in the sky?

Answer 1

Probably because it isn't a star. It's the planet Venus...

Oopss... I stand corrected. After a bit of research, here's what I found:

Polaris, the North Star, is visible in the northern hemisphere and indicates the direction of north. In the southern hemisphere the Southern Cross is used to find the direction of south.

Apparently, the North Star is not the planet Venus, as most of us think...

@}-----

Answer 2

It has always amazed me that this urban myth about Polaris being the biggest and brightest star persists still.
Polaris, the north star, is nowhere near the brightest, biggest or closest start to us. It's not even in the top ten.
Most of the visible planets are brighter (and in this case I am referring to apparent brightness or how bright something appears to us).
The only distinction that Polaris commands is that it is within 1 degree of the celestial pole, and in times past was the most reliable navigational tool next to the magnetic compass.
Venus, even though it is a planet, is often referred to as the "Morning Star" or "Evening Star" and because of its brightness and the myth that Polaris is the brightest, Venus is often confused with the north star. I can't imagine why. Venus is always near the sun which rises (for the most part) in the east and sets in the west, so how can the north star be there?
So just to be thorough: The north star is not the biggest in the sky. There are a number of stars which in reality are huge in comparison to Polaris. Polaris is not the brightest star in the sky. There are stars much brighter (both in Absolute brightness and apparent brightness). And finally Polaris is not the closest star to us. There are several others much closer.

Answer 3

Here's what I found... after carefully considering whether I would state that it is because it is the closest star to our solar system, I decided to double-check its stats, to see if I was correct, partly correct or not at all correct.

Only a number of stars is visible to the naked eye. Those that are, are the closest to Earth of all the stars there are in the Universe. And there are billions. Polaris, also known as the North Star, or the Pole Star - which got its name because it is 'spot on' (I emphasise that because in practice, this is not true - anymore. The Earth's axis actually rotates in a circle.) the North-South axis of the earth. Polaris consists out of 3 stars, in fact, of which Polaris A is the biggest one.

To answer the question why it is the biggest one... it isn't. That is, if you want to know if it is the brightest one.
Strictly speaking, the brightest and biggest star in our skies, would be the sun. Less strictly speaking (meaning, forget about the sun for a change) the brightest star would be Sirius, with a magnitude of -1.47. Polaris is only the 48th brightest star in the sky, with a variable magnitude of 2.01. It is also further away from us than Sirius is.
Sirius, by the way, is a star in the Canis Major constellation, which is very close to the Orion constellation.
Hence it can't be seen all year, at least not with the naked eye at night, but it should be visible around may-june, if my memory serves me correctly.

Answer 4

A lot of people answered that the biggest star in the sky is Venus, and I feel sorry for all of them.
Venus is another planet of our system, smaller than even earth so not even the largest planet.

I wonder how you came up with the question of "why is the North Star the biggest in the sky", since it assumes you believe the North Star is the biggest star, and it isn't even close.
The reason Polaris is important to us is that it is very close to the north celestial pole, so it gives us an easy way to find north by looking at the stars.
It is larger than the sun, but there are a lot of stars in our galaxy that are much larger than Polaris, many visible from earth.

Answer 5

Polaris is quite an unusual star. First, Polaris is the nearest bright star to the north spin axis of the Earth. Therefore, as the Earth turns, stars appear to rotate around Polaris, making it the North Star. Since no bright star is near the south spin axis of the Earth, there is currently no South Star. Thousands of years ago, Earth's spin axis pointed in a slightly different direction, and Vega was the North Star. Although Polaris is not the brightest star on the sky, it is easily located because it is nearly aligned with two stars in the cup of the Big Dipper, and is the last star in the handle of the Little Dipper. In the above picture, Polaris is the brightest star on the right, above the fleeting streak of a Perseid meteor. The surface of Polaris slowly pulsates, causing the star to change its brightness by a few percent over the course of a few days. This rare Cepheid variability of Polaris is, oddly enough, itself changing.

Answer 6

Blimey there seem to be a lot of answers to a simple question.

Firstly, the North Star (or Polaris) is not the biggest star in our night sky (when I say our I am assuming a Northern Hemisphere perspective). Nor it is the brightest. That belongs to Sirius (the Dog Star) or one of the planets depending when you are stargazing.

It is however one of the most important. This is because of its position. In the Northern Sky, it is roughly aligned to our North Pole, so that no matter where one is (north of the Equator), one can determine North by locating Polaris.

Answer 7

The North Star (polaris) is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor and located about 431 light-years away, which is no where near as close as to us compared to the nearest star (about 4 light years away).

The reason it shines so brightly is because it is 1950 times larger than our sun, it also has another star orbiting close to it, this is about the same size of our sun and a second star also orbits polaris (so in total there's 3 stars! 2 of which orbit polaris).

It is situated almost directly above the celestial north pole, making it Earth's current northern polestar. It appears as a fixed point in the night sky around which all the other stars revolve, and sailors have long used it to orient themselves.

For a picture of polaris from Hubble see the link below.

Answer 8

There is nothing special about Polaris, the North Star, apart from the fact that alone of stars it doesn't appear to move about the sky.

All other stars 'rotate' around it, as the earth revolves.

The brightest STAR in the sky is Sirius, look in the East now and you'll see it.

The planet, Venus is bright in the western sky in the evenings at the moment.

Answer 9

It isn't. Read on...

The largest known star (in terms of mass and brightness) is called the Pistol Star. It is believed to be 100 times as massive as our Sun, and 10,000,000 times as bright! In 1990, a star named the Pistol Star was known to lie at the center of the Pistol Nebula in the Milky Way Galaxy. In 1995, it was suggested that the Pistol Star was so massive it was throwing off the mass that actually created the Pistol Nebula. Observations from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997 confirmed the relationship between the star and the nebula. Astronomers are currently unsure how a star this massive could have formed or how it will act in the future.

Reasons why some think Polaris is larger and brighter than it is...

The North Star is thought to be a steady, solitary point of light that guided sailors for ages, but there is more to this star than meets the eye. The North Star is actually a triple star system. While one companion is easily viewed with small telescopes, the other hugs Polaris so tightly that it has never been seen until it was with Hubble.

Answer 10

The North Star is a title of the star best suited for navigation northwards. A candidate must be visible from Earth and circumpolar to the north celestial pole. The current one is Polaris. It is the star at the end of the "handle" of the Little Dipper asterism in the constellation Ursa Minor. It is close to the celestial North Pole, but off by 1°

The North Star has been historically used by explorers to determine their latitude. At any point north of the equator the angle from the horizon to the North Star (its altitude) is the same as the latitude from which that angle was taken. For example, the angle to the North Star for a person at 30° latitude will be about 30°.

Polaris has a visual magnitude of 1.97 (second magnitude). In 3000 BC the faint star Thuban in the constellation Draco was the North Star. At magnitude 3.67 (fourth magnitude) it is only one-fifth as bright as Polaris. The first magnitude star Vega will be the North Star by AD 14,000.

Currently, there is no South Star as useful as Polaris; the faint star σ Octantis is closest to the south celestial pole. However, the constellation Crux, the Southern Cross, points towards the south pole.

Answer 11

According to Astros uiuc:

Betelgeuse(Alpha Orionis) is one of the larger stars to be found anywhere. At its most likely distance of 425 light years, its measured angular diameter yields a radius 600 times that of the Sun, 2.8 Astronomical Units. Betelgeuse shines an amazing 60,000 times brighter than our Sun. It is also known as alpha ori, it is a M supergiant.

According to Nasa :

"There are many stars that are as massive as Betelgeuse is now, and probably many that are as massive as Betelgeuse was when it was on the main sequence. Of the 100,000,000,000 (100 billion=10^11) or so stars in our galaxy, it is estimated that approximately 1% have main sequence masses greater than 30 times that of the Sun."

The North Star ( also known as Polaris), has been regarded as the most important star in the heavens except for the Sun. It originated from Latin, Stella Polaris, meaning "Pole Star." It is a star that has long been an important star to sailors and caravans as a quide through the deserts and for navigation through the seas. In the past it has been known by other names such as the Lodestar, the ship star, Stella Maris meaning Star of the sea, and the Steering Star. In China it is is known as Tou Mu meaning Chinese Goddess of the North Star, Greeks called it Polaris Kynosoura meaning Dog’s Tail. It came into the English language as ‘cynosure’ something ( something that powerfully attracts attention by it’s central postion.) These are just a few of it’s names.