One of the smaller constellations is Lyra the Lyre. About all there is to Lyra is the bright star Vega, the second brightest star in the night sky right now, and four dimmer stars that form a parallelogram to the lower left of Vega.
Just after evening twilight look for Vega high in the easte
rn sky, and unless you’re viewing from a site of horrendous light pollution you should easily spot the parallelogram of stars.
Vega is also one of the stars in the Summer Triangle, which is made up of three bright stars that are the brightest in their respective constellations. Vega is the highest and brightest of the triad.
On the low right corner, close to the eastern horizon, is Altair in the constellation Aquila the Eagle, and to the lower left of Vega is Deneb, the brightest shiner in Cygnus the Swan.
If you have a small to moderate telescope, the most interesting celestial treasure to find within the diminutive summer constellation Lyra is what astronomers call M57, the Ring Nebula. It’s categorized as a planetary nebula, but that is a bit misleading. It really doesn’t have anything to do with our fellow planets or any other family of planets orbiting more distant stars.
Planetary nebulae got that name because when they were discovered via 18th century telescopes they looked liked giant planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn.
Planetary nebulae are stars that are going through their final phases of life before they become retired white dwarfs. All stars except for the behemoths go through this.
Most of their lives stars produce light and energy through a process called nuclear fusion. Deep in their cores tremendous heat is built up because of gravitational compression. That is, the star is being squeezed by its own gravity. In the case of our sun it’s believed that the core temperature is about 27 million degrees.
That heat causes hydrogen atoms to fuse into heavier helium atoms. In that process humongous amounts of energy and light are produced. Eventually a star runs out of hydrogen in its core, and helium atoms begin to fuse into carbon and oxygen.
When a star can no longer fuse atoms in its core it begins to collapse in on itself due to gravity. As it does, the star temporarily puffs out shells of its remaining gases as the core shrinks into a white dwarf.
Our own sun will go through this in roughly 6 billion years or so and the remaining white dwarf won’t be much larger than Earth.
That’s what’s happening right now in the case of the Ring Nebula. You’ll need a moderate telescope to really see what looks like a tiny smoke ring, but with even a small telescope you can see that M57 looks like a puffy star.
The Ring Nebula is more than 2,300 light-years away. The light that you see now from this ailing star has taken since the year 300 B.C. to reach here.
The Greeks saw Lyra as a small harp created by Mercury the messenger of the gods. The great early Greek musician Orpheus learned how to play it so beautifully that even animals and trees would bow when he performed.
When Orpheus was killed, he threw his Lyre into the sea in hopes of rescuing it later. The chief gods of Mount Olympus dispatched a small eagle to fetch his lyre out to of the sea and magically place it into the sky as the little harp we see in the summer heavens.
Mike Lynch is an astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Washington Starwatch,” available at bookstores. Check his website, www.lynchandthestars.com.
The Everett Astronomical Society: www.everettastro.org/.
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