The brighter star of the two is asolar analog—meaning it has physical properties that make it similar to the Sun. It has 10% more mass and a radius 17% larger than the Sun, with an estimated age of four billion years. Thespectrum of this star matches astellar classification of F8 V, which indicates this is amain sequence star that is generating energy at its core through thenuclear fusion of hydrogen. The energy is being radiated into space from its outer envelope at aneffective temperature of6,066 K. This gives the star the characteristic yellow-white hue of an F-type star.[13]
The fainter of the two stars has an apparent magnitude 8.86 and shares acommon proper motion. Its spectral type of K7Ve indicates it is ared dwarf. It has a mass 60% of the Sun's, a temperature of4,132 K and abolometric luminosity only 10% of the Sun's.
36 Ursae Majoris has a second companion with a magnitude of 11.44 located at an angular separation of 240.6″ along a position angle of 292°, as of 2004.[14] It does not share theproper motion of the other two stars and is a more massive and luminous star but much further away.[15]
According to Nelson & Angel (1998),[16] 36 Ursae Majoris could host one or two (or at least three)jovian planets (or evenbrown dwarfs) at wide separations from the host star, with orbital periods of 10–15, 25 and 50 years respectively. The authors have set upper limits of 1.1–2, 5.3 and 24Jupiter masses for the putative planetary objects. Also Lippincott (1983)[17] had previously noticed the possible presence of a massive unseen companion (with nearly 70 times the mass ofJupiter, just below the stellar regime, thus abrown dwarf). Putative parameters for the substellar object show an orbital period of 18 years and quite a high eccentricity (e=0.8). Even Campbell et al. 1988[18] inferred the existence of planetary objects or evenbrown dwarfs less massive than 14Jupiter masses around 36 Ursae Majoris.
Nevertheless, no certain planetary companion has yet been detected or confirmed. TheMcDonald Observatory team has set limits to the presence of one or more planets[19] with masses between 0.13 and 2.5Jupiter masses and average separations spanning between 0.05 and 5.2AU.
Aninfrared excess has been detected around this star, most likely indicating the presence of acircumstellar disk at a radius of 38.6 AU. The temperature of this dust is50 K.[20]
^abcJohnson, H. L.; et al. (1966), "UBVRIJKL photometry of the bright stars",Communications of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory,4 (99): 99,Bibcode:1966CoLPL...4...99J
^López-Valdivia, Ricardo; Mace, Gregory N.; Sokal, Kimberly R.; Hussaini, Maryam; Kidder, Benjamin T.; Mann, Andrew W.; Gosnell, Natalie M.; Oh, Heeyoung; Kesseli, Aurora Y.; Muirhead, Philip S.; Johns-Krull, Christopher M.; Jaffe, Daniel T. (2019), "Effective Temperatures of Low-mass Stars from High-resolution H-band Spectroscopy",The Astrophysical Journal,879 (2): 105,arXiv:1905.05076,Bibcode:2019ApJ...879..105L,doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab2129,S2CID152282781.
^Lippincott, S. L. (1983), "An unseen companion to 36 Ursae Majoris a from analysis of plates taken with the Sproul 61-cm refractor",Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific,95: 775,Bibcode:1983PASP...95..775L,doi:10.1086/131252,S2CID120550865.
^Murdoch, Kaylene A.; Hearnshaw, J. B.; Clark, M. (August 1993), "A search for substellar companions to southern solar-type stars",Astrophysical Journal, Part 1,413 (1):349–363,Bibcode:1993ApJ...413..349M,doi:10.1086/173003.
