Polaris, the Pole Star, for we who live in the Northern Hemisphere of the Earth, has a long history of being observed by many different cultures over the centuries. For a nice summary of these observations, have a look at Robert Bernham's three volume set 'Handbook of the Heavens' published by Dover in 1978, in volume 3 under the constellation Ursa Minor. Polaris is also called Alpha Ursa Minoris. In the future, as the precession of the Earth's axis continues its 26,000 year cycle, Polaris which is now nearly 1 degree from the true North Celestial Pole, will shift further and further away with each passing century. In 1000 years, Polaris's brief tenure will be an historical curiosity and even fainter stars will vie with each other for this honor.
Polaris has an apparent magnitude of +2.3 in the visual band, and at a distance of 240 parsecs ( 777 light years) has an absolute visual magnitude of -4.6 making it 7000 more luminous than the Sun in its output power. It is a type 'Ib' supergiant star; among the more intrinsically luminous stars in the Milky Way. It is classified as an F8 star with a surface temperature near 6300 K, somewhat hotter than the sun which is a G2-class star.
Polaris is actually a double star with a faint, +9 magnitude companion which orbits it at an angular separation of 18 arcminutes; just about 1/2 the diameter of the Full Moon. Polaris is also listed in some books as a spectroscopic binary with a period of 30 years. It is a known Cepheid variable star with a period of 4 days, however, during the last decade, the amplitude of its brightening and fading has decreased precipitously to less than 0.1 magnitude as compared to the 1.5 magnitude swings that usually characterize Cepheid variable stars with this same 4 day period.