What is the Lyra?

Lyra is a constellation, one of 88 constellations that the night sky is divided into. The sky is not divided up equally between the constellations. Lyra takes up 286.476 sq. degrees of the night sky which equate to 0.69% of the night sky. The constellation gets its name as it name means The Lyra. The constellation is one of the original constellations that was devised by the Ancient Greco-Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy who lived between 90 A.D. and 168 A.D. Lyra contains an extremely bright star called Vega, also known as alpha Lyrae. Vega is very bright because is two and a half times as large as our Sun and it is also located close to Earth. In fact, this massive star is just 23 light-years away from the Earth which is the equivalent of a next door neighbor by celestial standards. In approximately 12,000 years from now, the plant’s axis rotation will position Vega directly above the north pole, making it our new polar star, just as it was about 15,000 years ago.

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