An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A blue → dwarf star of → spectral type A1 with an → apparent magnitude of 2.37 in the constellation → Ursa Major. It lies 79 → light-years away and has a → luminosity almost 60 times solar, and a mass about triple that of the Sun. Although Merak ranks fifth in brightness in the → Big Dipper, it received the Beta designation from Bayer, who lettered the Dipper’s stars from front to back.

See also: From Ar. al-Maraqq (المراق) “the soft parts of the belly, the loins.”