Science & history · Star guide
Vega, the bright star of Lyra
Vega is the brightest star in the small constellation Lyra, the Lyre, and the brightest corner of the Summer Triangle. It is 25 light-years away: the light you see left it about 25 years ago.
About this picture
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC. Constellation figures based on those developed for the IAU by Alan MacRobert of Sky and Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott and Rick Fienberg). NASA's page (opens in a new tab).
The map is a composite of 1.7 billion catalogued stars, not a photograph from one place: it shows stars far too faint for the eye, and no weather, Moon or city light. It is drawn here in this chart's projection, with each star where it was in 2000; the fastest-moving bright star has shifted about a minute of arc since, far less than a pixel here.
How to spot it: The brightest corner of the Summer Triangle. Source (opens in a new tab)
What you are looking at
Vega is a hot, white star 25 light-years away, the brightest in the little constellation Lyra.
Vega lies 25 light-years away in Lyra (opens in a new tab), the Lyre. In the Hipparcos measurements it is magnitude 0.03, fifth in ESA's list (opens in a new tab) of the brightest stars, so the light reaching you tonight set out about 25 years ago.
Jim Kaler (opens in a new tab) sets it beside its two northern rivals of almost the same brightness: Vega hot and white, Arcturus cool and orange, Capella yellow-white in between. That is a difference of surface temperature: hotter stars look blue or white (opens in a new tab), cooler ones orange or red.
Sources for this section NASA JPL, Tiny Particles, So Far Away (PIA07218, 2005) (opens in a new tab); ESA, Hipparcos: The 50 Brightest Stars (opens in a new tab); Jim Kaler, Capella, STARS (University of Illinois) (opens in a new tab); NASA Science, Stars in an Exoplanet World (opens in a new tab)
A disc of dust
Vega is wrapped in a huge disc of dust, the debris of collisions among bodies forming around it.
In 2005 NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope picked up the heat of dust around Vega (opens in a new tab) and found the disc far larger than expected: at least 815 astronomical units in radius, 815 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.
NASA's explanation is that the fine dust comes from collisions of embryonic planets (opens in a new tab) about 90 astronomical units from the star and is then blown outward by Vega's intense radiation, and that the disc is the aftermath of a large and relatively recent collision, perhaps between bodies as big as Pluto.
Keep in mind The disc was found by its heat (opens in a new tab), in infrared images from a space telescope. What you see by eye is the star alone.
Sources for this section NASA JPL, Tiny Particles, So Far Away (PIA07218, 2005) (opens in a new tab)
How to find it
Vega is the brightest corner of the Summer Triangle, and from mid-northern latitudes it passes almost overhead.
Look for the Summer Triangle (opens in a new tab), three bright stars from three constellations: Vega in Lyra, Altair in Aquila and Deneb in Cygnus (opens in a new tab). Vega is the brightest of the three. NASA notes (opens in a new tab) that the Triangle shows even in light-polluted city skies and stands high on summer evenings in the Northern Hemisphere.
By this site's calculation (opens in a new tab), Vega passes almost overhead from 40°N, but from 35°S it reaches only about 16° up in the north, so southern observers see it low in the north. It is highest at about 9 p.m. local time in mid-August.
How to see it Beside Vega hangs the small figure of the lyre, made of fainter stars. Between two of them, Sheliak and Sulafat (opens in a new tab), lies the Ring Nebula, which needs a moderately sized telescope to show its ring.
Sources for this section Preston Dyches, What Are Asterisms?, NASA Science (2021, updated 2024) (opens in a new tab); Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Summer Triangle Corner: Altair, NASA Night Sky Network (opens in a new tab); Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab); NASA Hubble, Messier 57 (the Ring Nebula) (opens in a new tab)
Often confused with
Vega, Arcturus and Capella are nearly equal in brightness; colour and season tell them apart.
In ESA's list (opens in a new tab) Arcturus is fourth, Vega fifth and Capella sixth, so brightness alone will not separate them. Kaler (opens in a new tab) places them around the northern sky by season: Arcturus of spring, Vega of summer, Capella on winter evenings, with Arcturus orange, Vega white and Capella yellow-white.
Within the Summer Triangle, Vega is the brightest corner: in the same list (opens in a new tab) Altair is magnitude 0.76 and Deneb 1.25, both clearly fainter than Vega's 0.03. Altair is the last of the three to rise (opens in a new tab) for northern observers.
Sources for this section ESA, Hipparcos: The 50 Brightest Stars (opens in a new tab); Jim Kaler, Capella, STARS (University of Illinois) (opens in a new tab); Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Summer Triangle Corner: Altair, NASA Night Sky Network (opens in a new tab)
Where on Earth, and when
It rises from anywhere north of about 51°S.
North of about 51°N, it never sets.
It climbs at least 20° high, the finder's threshold for a suggestion, from anywhere north of about 31°S.
It is highest in the evening sky, at about 9 p.m. local time, in mid-August, from either hemisphere, wherever it rises. With daylight saving time, that is nearer 10 p.m. on the clock.
Worked out by this site from the Bright Star Catalogue, for a flat, clear horizon. Hills, buildings, haze and city light all cut into this; the air also lifts objects near the horizon by about half a degree. For your own place and night, use the sky finder.
Sources
- Astronomy NASA JPL, Tiny Particles, So Far Away (PIA07218, 2005) (opens in a new tab) for distance and the dust disc · checked 2 October 2026
- Astronomy ESA, Hipparcos: The 50 Brightest Stars (opens in a new tab) for magnitude and rank, and those of its rivals · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Jim Kaler, Capella, STARS (University of Illinois) (opens in a new tab) for Vega's colour beside Arcturus and Capella · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy NASA Science, Stars in an Exoplanet World (opens in a new tab) for colour and temperature · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Preston Dyches, What Are Asterisms?, NASA Science (2021, updated 2024) (opens in a new tab) for the Summer Triangle in city skies · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Kat Troche (Astronomical Society of the Pacific), Summer Triangle Corner: Altair, NASA Night Sky Network (opens in a new tab) for the Triangle's three stars and Altair · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy NASA Hubble, Messier 57 (the Ring Nebula) (opens in a new tab) for the Ring Nebula between Sheliak and Sulafat · checked 27 September 2026
- Astronomy Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab) for its height from 40°N and 35°S, and best month
