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Vega
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Vega The precession of the equinoxes.
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Vega
Vega Vega, as seen by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Vega

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Also known as: Alpha Lyrae
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Also called:
Alpha Lyrae
Famous disk around Vega shows no planets?! • Nov. 3, 2024, 1:27 AM ET (EarthSky)

Vega, brightest star in the northern constellation Lyra and fifth brightest in the night sky, with a visual magnitude of 0.03. It is also one of the Sun’s closer neighbours, at a distance of about 25 light-years. Vega’s spectral type is A (white) and its luminosity class V (main sequence). It will become the northern polestar by about ad 14,000 because of the precession of the equinoxes. Vega is surrounded by a disk of circumstellar dust that may be similar to the solar system’s Kuiper Belt.

(List of Brightest Stars as Seen from Earth)

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Erik Gregersen.