The North Star is the anchor of the northern sky. It is a landmark, or sky marker, that helps those who follow it determine direction as it glows brightly to guide and lead toward a purposeful destination. It also has a symbolic meaning, for the North Star depicts a beacon of inspiration and hope to many.

Unlike all other stars in the sky, Polaris always points to the North and is helpful in determining direction. Over time, this has helped it to gain symbolic meanings such as guidance, hope, luck, freedom, constancy, and even life’s purpose.

What is the North Star? The reason Polaris is so important is because the axis of Earth is pointed almost directly at it. During the course of the night, Polaris does not rise or set, but remains in very nearly the same spot above the northern horizon year-round while the other stars circle around it.

Metaphorically speaking, your North Star is your personal mission statement. It’s a fixed destination that you can depend on in your life as the world changes around you.

The research is detailed in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Polaris gained its reputation as the North Star due to its location in the night sky, which is aligned with the direction of Earth’s axis. The star is about 4,000 times as bright as the sun. While Polaris is the North Star today, it won’t always remain so.

Tetsuo Hara working on ‘Fist of the North Star’. One of the biggest manga series of all time is definitely that of Fist of the North Star. Written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara, I caught up with the latter to find out that the creative process for it was a far more collaborative than you might think.

For example, Deneb (α Cyg) is referred to as 天 津 四 ( Tiān Jīn Sì, the Fourth Star of Celestial Ford ). In the Qing Dynasty, Chinese knowledge of the sky was improved by the arrival of European star charts.

While there is little disagreement on the correspondence between traditional Chinese and Western star names for brighter stars, many asterisms, in particular those originally from Gan De, were created primarily for astrological purposes and can only be mapped to very dim stars.

The tradition was to venerate the appropriate year star on your birthday and also at Chinese New Year. Many significant stars have legends associated with them; typically controlling one particular aspect of life. So there is a Betrothal star; a Rheumatism star; a Peach Blossom star controlling mental illness and so on.