Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 for dragon

Dragon

A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...

. Draco is circumpolar

Circumpolar star

A circumpolar star is a star that, as viewed from a given latitude on Earth, never sets , due to its proximity to one of the celestial poles...

 (that is, never setting) for many observers in the northern hemisphere

Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...

. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations today.
Eltanin (Gamma Draconis) is the brightest star in Draco, with an apparent magnitude

Apparent magnitude

The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, adjusted to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...

 of 2.24.

The constellation contains the star recently named Kepler-10

Kepler-10

Kepler-10, formerly known as KOI-72, is a sunlike star in constellation Draco that lies 173 parsecs away from the Earth. Kepler-10 was targeted by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, as it was seen the first star identified by the Kepler mission as a possible host to a small, transiting exoplanet...

 which has been confirmed to be orbited by Kepler-10b

Kepler-10b

Kepler-10b is the first confirmed terrestrial planet to have been discovered outside the Solar System. Discovered after several months of data collection during the course of the NASA-directed Kepler Mission, which aims to discover Earth-like planets crossing in front of their host stars, the...

, the smallest ever rocky Earth-sized planet detected outside of our solar system.

The star Thuban

Thuban

Thuban also known by its Bayer designation Alpha Draconis is a star in the constellation of Draco. A relatively inconspicuous star in the night sky of the Northern Hemisphere, it is historically significant as having been the north pole star in ancient times...

 (α Draconis) was the northern pole star

Pole star

The term "Pole Star" usually refers to Polaris, which is the current northern pole star, also known as the North Star.In general, however, a pole star is a visible star, especially a prominent one, that is approximately aligned with the Earth's axis of rotation; that is, a star whose apparent...

 around 2700 BC, during the time of the ancient Egyptians.