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Vega
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Vega Diagram showing Earth's axis of rotation tilted at about 23.5 degrees, illustrating precession as the axis traces a circular path over 26,000 years, shifting alignment from Polaris, the current North Star, to Vega. Labels indicate the plane of Earth's orbit and the changing orientation of the axis over time.
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The orbits of the planets and other elements of the solar system, including asteroids, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, comet
Space Odyssey
Ursa major constellation illustration art. (Big Dipper) stars, space, night sky)
Stars: Explosions in Space
1 July 2002: The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite reveals a massive solar eruption more than 30 times the Earth's diameter. The eruption formed when a loop of a magnetic field over the surface of the Sun trapped hot gas.
Brightest Star in the Solar System
Quick Facts
Also called:
Alpha Lyrae
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Vega
Vega Vega, as seen by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Vega

star
Also known as: Alpha Lyrae
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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History

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.
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