1 Cancri is a single star in the zodiac constellation of Cancer, positioned near the border with Gemini at a distance of around 467 light years from the Sun. It is barely visible to the naked eye as a dim, orange-hued star with an apparent visual magnitude of 5.97. The object is moving further from the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of +14 km/s.
This is an evolved giant star with a stellar classification of K3− III, having exhausted the hydrogen at its core and expanded. It is specified as a spectral standard for that type. The angular diameter of the star measured from a lunar occultation is, which, at its estimated distance, equates to a physical radius of about 19 times the radius of the Sun. It is radiating 199 times the Sun's luminosity from its enlarged photosphere at an effective temperature of .