It is approximately 1,290 light-years (400 parsecs) from the Sun and has an average apparent visual magnitude of +3.41.

The star is identified with the nganurganity [ˈŋanuɾˌɡ̊aniɟ̊] "Jacky lizard"[16] in the culture of the Boorong, a clan of the indigenous Maligundidj people of northwestern Victoria in Australia, who saw it as an ancestral figure who fights the moon, flanked by his wives (the stars Delta and Epsilon Canis Majoris).

[15] Sigma Canis Majoris is a supergiant star with a stellar classification of K5 Ib.

[3] This is a type of star that is in the late stages of its evolution, having consumed the hydrogen at its core and ballooned out to 290 times the Sun's radius.

Instruments are capable of measuring the pre-supernova neutrino flux which would act as an alert that the supernova explosion was starting.