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According to Hipparcos, Alioth is 81 light years (25 parsecs) from Earth. Its spectral type is A0p; the "p" stands for peculiar, as the spectrum of its light is quite odd, of a kind characteristic of an Alpha2 Canum Venaticorum-class variable . Alioth, as a representative of this type, is believed to look the way it does because of two interacting processes: first, the star's strong magnetic field separating different elements salting the star's hydrogen fuel, then a rotation axis at an angle to the magnetic axis spinning different bands of magnetically sorted elements into the line of sight between Alioth and the Earth. The intervening elements react differently at different frequencies of light as they whip in and out of view, causing Alioth to have very strange spectral lines that fluctuate over a period of 5.1 days. In the case of Alioth, the rotational and magnetic axes are at almost 90 degrees to one another; in the map of Alioth linked below, note how the darker (more dense) regions of chromium form a band at right angles to the equator.

Chromium distribution on Alioth

Of its type, Alioth has a relatively weak magnetic field, but it is still fifteen times stronger than that of the Earth.

The origin of its name is unclear, but one theory derives it from the Arabic al-Jawn -- "black horse". This is believed to be a result of its misidentification with the nearby MizarThis article is about the star. The Mizar system is also a language for writing strictly formalized mathematical definitions and proofs, for a computer program to check these proofs, and for a library containing definitions and theorems. The AVE Mizar was's dim companion AlcorAlcor Life Extension Foundation 80 Ursae Majoris a star in Ursa Major., the pair of which were a horse and rider in Arab mythology; Alcor's name has a similar etymologyEtymology is the study of the origins of words. Some words have been derived from other languages, possibly in a changed form (the source words are called etymons . Through old texts and comparisons with other languages, etymologists try to reconstruct th.