The twelfth star in the Nautical Almanac, Capella ("the little she-goat") in the constellation of Auriga the Charioteer, is actually a double double star, consisting of one pair of bright yellow stars like our Sun (but approximately 2.5 times the mass) and one pair of red dwarfs. The two yellow stars orbit each other while the red dwarfs orbit the yellows in complicated orbits that perturb each other.
The Capella system lies between 42 and 45 light years from Earth. The yellows are young stars, only 600 million years old, but they are both about 12 times the radius of our Sun and have used up most of their hydrogen and helium. Larger stars burn faster. Like their companions they will eventually cool into red dwarfs.
Capella was known to Sumerian astrologers, and prehistoric man would have seen Capella as the brightest star in the heavens some 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Due to precession, the wobbling of the Earth on its axis, at that time Capella would have been the Pole Star. Today, Capella is the third brightest star in the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, and the sixth brightest overall.
Capella is one of the Behenian Stars with its own astrological powers. Capella confers both inquisitiveness and openmindedness upon the querent. According to Greek mythology, Capella represents the heart of the goat Amalthea which suckled Zeus; however, all ancient cultures associated Capella and the Auriga constellation either with a charioteer or a driver of livestock (a shepherd) including the Indians and the Chinese. Capella was also the star of life-giving rain.
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