Vega
Star
Facts
- Distance
- 25.1 light-years
- Spectral class
- A0 V
- Mass
- about 2.15 times the Sun
- Age
- from about 350 to about 700 million years, depending on the source
- Flattening
- equator about 13% wider than the poles
Vega is a white main-sequence star of spectral class A0 V: the fifth brightest star in the night sky, 25 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra, with about twice the mass of the Sun.
We see it almost pole-on, with its axis tilted about 6° from our line of sight, and so it looks brighter than it really is: it gives out about 47 times the Sun's light, but seen from Earth it seems 60 times brighter.
It is surrounded by a disc of dust at least 815 AU across, 20 times the size of the Solar System, perhaps produced by collisions between bodies as large as Pluto.
Sources
- van Altena, Lee and Hoffleit 1995, General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes, 4th Ed., Yale University Observatory
- Hoffleit and Warren 1991, Yale Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (V magnitudes, positions and spectral classes)
- Monnier et al. 2012, ApJL 761, L3 (shape of Vega)
- NASA/JPL, Spitzer Sees Dusty Aftermath of Pluto-Sized Collision
- NASA APOD, Stars of a Summer Triangle (27 June 2015)