Observation by scientists report that there was a north star before Polaris

A recent observation by notable scientists and astronomers from NASA’s TESS mission have deduced that Polaris has not always been the guiding star aligning with the north pole and that previous civilizations may have used another star. The star called Thuban, also known as the Alpha Draconis, is the most prominent star of the Draco constellation system. The fact that the Egyptian pyramids perfectly align with the stars have caused speculations that this star was used in the construction of these massive structures.

"The first question that comes to mind is 'How did we miss this? The eclipses are brief, lasting only six hours, so ground-based observations can easily miss them. And because the star is so bright, it would have quickly saturated detectors on NASA's Kepler observatory, which would also mask the eclipses,” said Angela Kochoska, a postdoctoral researcher at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

The findings that were derived from the TESS mission about the previous pole star were presented at 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society which was conducted in Honululu. Thuban is much larger than the solar sun and about seventy percent hotter than the temperature on the sun’s surface. Thuban is part of a binary star system which means that it also has a companion star.