During the 1950s, Karl Pilowski reported that photographic plates taken of the star appeared to show a variability of 0.2 in magnitude. Follow-up studies initially failed to confirm this variability, and it was found not to be an eclipsing binary based on radial velocity measurements.[17] The star's photosphere is rotating differentially, and the rotation period, typically in the range of 16-18 days, shows a larger difference between different latitudes than for most other stars.[18] It has an active chromosphere that exhibits strong and persistent starspot activity.[9] A flare event was captured in 2013 while the star was being observed by the VATT,[19] and the star has been detected as a source of X-ray emission.[20]
No substellar companions have been observed in orbit around this star, and it appears to lack a dust ring as is found around some comparable stars. A radial velocity survey completed in 2020 has indicated that giant planetary companions are absent.[9] A magnitude 11.35 stellar visual companion was reported by O. Struve in 1850. As of 2015, this star was located at an angular separation of 158.90″ from the brighter star, along a position angle of 86°.[21]
In popular culture
In the science fiction of Larry Niven's Known Space universe, the homeworld of the major race the Kzinti is the third planet in orbit around 61 Ursae Majoris.[22]
^ abJohnson, H. L.; Morgan, W. W. (1953). "Fundamental stellar photometry for standards of spectral type on the revised system of the Yerkes spectral atlas". Astrophysical Journal. 117: 313–352. Bibcode:1953ApJ...117..313J. doi:10.1086/145697.
^Corbally, Christopher J.; et al. (January 2015). van Belle, G.; Harris, H. C. (eds.). Short-term Activity in Young Solar Analogs. 18th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun, Proceedings of the conference held at Lowell Observatory, 8-14 June, 2014. pp. 307–312. Bibcode:2015csss...18..307C.
^Haakonsen, Christian Bernt; Rutledge, Robert E. (September 2009). "XID II: Statistical Cross-Association of ROSAT Bright Source Catalog X-ray Sources with 2MASS Point Source Catalog Near-Infrared Sources". The Astrophysical Journal Supplement. 184 (1): 138–151. arXiv:0910.3229. Bibcode:2009ApJS..184..138H. doi:10.1088/0067-0049/184/1/138. S2CID119267456.