An orange dwarf (i.e. main sequence) star located in the northwest part of the constellation Draco. It is a relatively close neighbor of the Sun, at a distance of under 19 light years. The star is an orange main sequence dwarf of spectral type K0 and is 77.8% of our Sun's radius. It is considered a slightly metal-poor star; meaning it has a lower proportion of isotopes with more mass than Helium when compared to the Sun. The temperature, luminosity and surface activity of this star appear to vary slightly in a manner very similar to the sunspot cycle.

In Star Trek, the Sigma Draconis system is a star system with nine planets, three of them inhabited. It was probed by only long-range scans until the USS Enterprise entered the system in 2268 to search for Commander Spock's brain. Sigma Draconis VI was a remarkable example of a retrograde civilization. At the peak, it was advanced beyond 23rd century Federation capabilities, but had de-evolved to primitive level, beginning 10,000 years ago when a glacial age reoccurred. An underground complex was developed for the women, while the men remained above, causing a male-female schism. This civilization was discovered to be the home to what the Morgs referred to as the "givers of pain and delight," otherwise known as the Eymorgs.

The civilization, itself, was controlled by a computer known as the Controller, which was responsible for keeping the Eymorgs alive for a period of 10,000 years, and for whom the Eymorgs lived to serve. Following the disconnection of the Controller (which was "powered" by Spock's brain), by the crew of the Enterprise, the Morgs and Eymorgs were force to live together once again, in a forced attempt to re-establish a civilization. (TOS: "Spock's Brain")

In reality, this star has an unusually large orbital eccentricity about the Milky Way galaxy of 0.30 (compared to 0.06 for the Sun.) The mean galactocentric distance for this orbit is 10.3 kiloparsecs (about 34,000 light-years).

Sigma Draconis is included in a list of the top 100 target stars for NASA's planned Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF). Although no planets have been found so far orbiting Sigma Draconis, searches will be made over the next decade or so to check for the existence of Earth-like worlds in the star's habitable zone. In November 2005, astronomer Margaret Turnbull, who has been working on identifying the best stars for the TPF to target its observatories, wrote that: "Sigma Draconis is one of our best TPF-C targets, and the 4th easiest star in the universe to detect terrestrial planets"