Vega

system

Vega is the fifth-brightest star in the night sky, 25 light-years away in Lyra, and one of the most important stars in astronomy: for over a century it defined the zero point of the brightness scale. A hot blue-white A-type star twice the Sun's mass, it is ringed by a disk of dust — the first such 'debris disk' ever found. No planet is confirmed.

Open in 3D viewSee Vega in the live, interactive 3D map

Key facts

Type

Blue-white A-type star

Distance

25.04 light-years

Confirmed planets

Science

Classification

Type: Single A-type star with a debris disk
Central star: Vega — A0V (~9600 K, ~2.1 M☉)

Debris disk

Extent: A broad dust disk, ~tens to ~200 AU, seen nearly face-on

Planets

Confirmed planets: None

Distance

Distance: 25.04 light-years

How we know

Note: No planet is confirmed (a proposed hot planet 'Vega b' is unconfirmed). The debris disk is real and directly imaged. Real distance 25.04 light-years.

Discovery & history

Method: Naked-eye star
Name: Its IAU name Vega is from the Arabic 'the swooping eagle'; Alpha Lyrae.

The first star ever photographed (1850); in 1983 IRAS found its surrounding dust disk, launching the study of debris disks.

Images

Real JWST/MIRI mid-infrared image of the debris disk around Vega (ALMA contours, lower right) — the detected dust disk, well over 100 AU across. — NASA/ESA/CSA, K. Su et al. (CC BY 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons

Images from open archives · credit shown per image