Vega is a bright star in the constellation Lyra, located 25.3 light-years away. It has twice the mass of the Sun and 30 times its luminosity. In 12,000 years, it will become the new pole star. Vega was used as a reference point for the astronomical luminosity scale.
Vega is a star with just over twice the mass of the Sun, located 25.3 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, the lyre. Along with Arcturus and Sirius, it is one of the brightest stars in our neighborhood, being the fifth brightest star in our sky. After Arcturus, Vega is the next brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere. Together with the Sun, Vega lies within the Local Bubble, a region of space 300 light-years in diameter with only about 10% of the mean density of the interstellar medium.
Vega’s name comes from the Arabic word waqi which means “fall”. This is a reference to the time when people thought of the constellation Lyra as a swooping vulture rather than a lyre. Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra and a vertex of the Summer Triangle, an asterism where it connects the constellations Aquila, Cygnus and Lyra. In about 12,000 years, Vega will become the new pole star due to the precession of the equinoxes, a slight change in stellar patterns due to the change in the tilt of the Earth’s rotational axis.
Although Vega’s mass is only twice that of the Sun, it has 30 times the luminosity. Because more massive stars burn off their hydrogen more rapidly, Vega’s estimated lifetime is about a billion years, one-tenth that of the Sun. After it has used up most of the hydrogen in its core, it will begin to fuse helium and will expand to become a red giant. An oxygen-carbon white dwarf remnant will remain, and the star’s envelope will be ejected to form a planetary nebula.
For many years, Vega was used to represent 0 on the astronomical luminosity scale, with stars brighter than Vega having negative values and stars fainter than Vega having positive values. Only the Sun, Sirius, Canopus, Arcturus and Alpha Centauri are brighter stars.
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