Science: North Star & Co.

The North Star, which has guided navigators throughout history, is not a lonely star like the sun. It has long been known to have a rather dim and distant "companion" visible in telescopes, and the two stars revolve around each other once in thousands of years. Now Dr. Elizabeth Roemer of the University of California has found evidence that Polaris has a second, nearby companion that cannot be seen even with the biggest telescopes.

In 1929 Dr. J. H. Moore of Lick Observatory noticed that the spectrum of Polaris, which is a brilliant supergiant,...