Also called Alpha Ursa Minoris, this magnitude 1.99 star is classified as a F8 Ib star which means it is a very luminous supergiant star with an orange- yellow color and a surface temperature near 4000 degrees K. It is currently about 54 arc minutes from the true North Celestial Pole, and by the year 2102, it will be less than the Moon's diameter from the Pole or 27.5 minutes of arc. Polaris is a double star with a companion star about 18 arc seconds distant, and it orbits Polaris every few thousand years, at a separation of about 2000 times the Earth-Sun distance of 93 million miles apart. Polaris moves through space at a speed of about 20 kilometers/sec, and is at a distance of about 360 light years. It has a luminosity of about 1600 times that of the Sun. It is also a variable star, however the amplitude of its brightness change is only 0.1 magnitudes with a period of about 3.9 days, and has decreased below 0.05 magnitudes in the recent decade, causing some astronomers to think that it is evolving into a stable star. There is also an unseen companion star to Polaris which has a period of 30 years, but it would have to be a faint dwarf star to have escaped detection against the bright glare of Polaris itself.