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  1. en.wikipedia.org › wiki › VegaVega - Wikipedia

    Vega was the northern pole star around 12,000 BCE and will be so again around the year 13,727, when its declination will be +86° 14′. [19] Vega was the first star other than the Sun to have its image and spectrum photographed. [20] [21] It was one of the first stars whose distance was estimated through parallax measurements.

    • Locating Vega
    • Early Observations
    • Vega in Recent Years

    Vega is almost directly overhead at midnorthern latitudes on midsummer nights. Vega sinks below the horizon for only 7 hours a day and can be seen on any night of the year. Farther south, Vega lies below the horizon for a longer period, but in Alaska, northern Canada and much of Europe, Vega never sets. The star's location is: 1. Right ascension: 1...

    Because Vega's blue-white light is so bright — the star has an apparent magnitude of 0.03 — it features prominently in ancient cultures, ranging from the Chinese to the Polynesians to the Hindus. Vega's name comes from the Arabic word "waqi," which means "falling" or "swooping." "This is a reference to the time when people regarded the constellatio...

    Vega rose to prominence in popular culture in the late 1990s after Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" (1985, Simon & Schuster) was adapted into a Hollywood movie. Starring Jodie Foster, the movie followed an astronomer working on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) who discovers a signal appearing to emanate from Vega. Telescopic observat...

  2. Jan 20, 2020 · Right now, the North Star is Polaris, but Vega was the northern pole star around 12,000 BC and will the pole star again about the 13,727. If you took a long exposure photograph of the northern sky today, the stars would appear as trails around Polaris. When Vega is the pole star, a long exposure photograph would show stars circling it.

    • Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D.
  3. Jun 22, 2021 · Vega is close to us at only 25 light years from the Sun. It is the second brightest star seen from the Northern Hemisphere. Because the Earth’s axis wobbles, the pole star slowly changes over thousands of years. Vega was the pole star 12,000 years ago and it will again be the Pole star in 12,000 more years.

  4. Nov 5, 2023 · The high spin rate gives Vega the shape of an oblate spheroid. The star’s equatorial diameter is 19% larger than its polar diameter. Vega’s equatorial bulge cannot be observed directly because we only get a pole-on view.

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  6. Jan 8, 2020 · It was the northern pole star until 12.000 BC, this led to its great importance for ancient civilizations, and astronomers termed it “the second most important star, after the Sun.”. It is the second star to be photographed, and the first to have its spectrum recorded. It was photographed in 1850. Vega is only 25 light-years away from the Sun.

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