The brightest star in the constellation Lyra is. Constellation Lyra, alien race Lyrans. Environment and form

In fact, the small constellation Lyra is located in. Indeed, its area is 256 square degrees. Which puts it only 56th in size. It is adjacent to Hercules, Dragon, Swan and Chanterelle.
As you know, the constellation was named after the inhabitants’ favorite instrument Ancient Greece.

The legend about the constellation Lyra

According to myth, Zeus had a kite. He stole the body of the nymph Kampa from the captivity of the evil titan. In gratitude, God placed him in the sky in the form of a combination of stars.
There is also an opinion that this is placed on celestial sphere tool. Which, according to different versions, belonged to Apollo or Orpheus.

Actually, there are five stars on the territory of Lyra. They form a figure that stands out well in the sky.
Alpha constellations - . It is the second brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition, it is part of the popular Summer Triangle asterism. This is a white luminary of class AOVa.
Beta — Sheliak is a class B7V eclipsing variable star. Moreover, it has a white-blue color.
Delta expressed as a bright red giant of the M4IIvar class.
RR Lyra it is a pulsating variable object. By the way, a whole class of variable stars was named after RR Lyrae.
Gamma — Sulafat belongs to the blue-white giants of class B9III.
In addition to this, one cannot help but mention Epsilon areas. This is a multiple luminary. Which, it’s worth noting, has four components.

Other objects

The constellation Lyra hides an interesting Ring(M 57). This is a pretty dim area. But it can still be found using special devices.
In addition, the constellation Lyra contains globular cluster M 56. Although it contains a small number of stars.
In addition, several meteor showers: Lyrids, June Lyrids and Alpha Lyrids.

Observation

Since the constellation Lyra lies between and, you need to look for it in this area. It is clearly visible at latitudes from +90 to -42.
According to astronomers, the best time to observe the musical constellation is in the summer. In Russia you can watch from anywhere.

"Relatively small constellation Lyra is located in the northern hemisphere, between Hercules and Cygnus. Brightest star Lyra constellation is Vega. The famous nebula M57 is also located in this constellation. Previously, it was generally accepted that it was a spherical gas shell that expanded as a result of the development of the star. But thanks to the latest data from the Hubble telescope, we know that this cloud is asymmetrical and contains dark inclusions.”

LYRIANS

Constellation Lyra is the birthplace Alien race Lyrans, whose representatives look different: some of them are giants with light skin, light eyes and blond hair; Some members of this race have light brown hair, although this is rare. Height Lyrans equal to approximately 1.8-2.75 m. They are well built and quite athletic. This applies to both sexes. There is also Lyrans with bright red hair.

Lyran classes

It can be said that Lyrans were significant figures on Earth. During their time of greatest activity on our planet, they used symbols to identify their group; the most common were images of birds and cats. People loved and feared them, like an authoritative parent.

Humanoid types: Light-skinned Lyrans Quite sensitive to sunlight. When it comes to eye color, the most common color is light green. We can say that representatives of this race are very similar to the ancient Vikings. White Lyrans They have very fair skin and light eyes. Sometimes their eye color can be light brown, but this is rare. It is believed that these Lyrans were the ancestors of the white people inhabiting our planet. Dark-skinned Lyrans Representative skin of this type Lyrans have a light chocolate tint. The eye color is mostly brown, but some have green eyes. This class influenced the people of Pakistan and India the most. These are very peaceful Lyrans, and, as a rule, do not show any emotions. There are other types, some resemble earth animals One of these are bird-like Lyrans. They have bird eyes, and although they don’t have feathers on their heads, they have hair that is very reminiscent of them. This class has great intelligence. Another class - Lyrans similar to cats. They have a cat's nose (not very pronounced), their ears are slightly pointed, like the elves in the ancient legends of earthlings. The eyes of this class are very similar to those of a cat and even have second eyelids. The skin is covered with thin hair (similar to that of a peach).

History of the Lyrans

Many thousands of years ago, the Lyran civilization reached a high level of technological development, and they began to travel in space. They were beings of free will who had control over their destiny. At a certain point, disagreements arose among them, and they divided into factions with different ideologies, goals and objectives. As a result, the war began and most of the society was destroyed, their home was destroyed. Some Lyrans left their home system and found a new home in star systems Pleiades And Hyades. They also settled in neighboring Vega.

Over thousands of years, they raised local societies to a high technological level, thanks to which they were again able to travel in outer space. Some of the Lyrans living in the constellation discovered our planet with its life emerging in favorable conditions. They stayed on Earth and founded here Lemuria And Atlantis, some mixed with earthly creatures and became humans. Those who remained aloof from this soon developed highly advanced technologies, designed and built many wonderful machines and other devices, and created various amenities.

Already on Earth a split occurred again, and society was divided into two camps, in each of which there were high tech. Eventually a war broke out, causing serious destruction. Those who could fled to other places and started all over again. Some of these creatures also visit us occasionally today.

After a large amount of time, inhabitants arrived on Earth again Pleiades. They wanted to see how the descendants of their ancestors who survived terrible war. They found survivors, mixed with them again, and assisted humanity in gaining control of its assets, producing new technologies.

Modern Pleiadians are descendants of a peaceful faction that settled in the Pleiades. Another group of peaceful Lyrans settled in the Vega system.

Descendants Lyrans are interested in the well-being of earthlings and feel a special responsibility towards people, since we are still belligerent towards each other. They experienced something similar: they repeatedly destroyed their civilizations, and each time they lost great technological achievements. There is also a version that Lyrans have conquered another planet in our solar system, 5th from the sun, which was actually destroyed nuclear weapons received from their hands. Therefore, members of this race are concerned about how we are using nuclear science at the present time.

Though Lyrans much older than humans, they are not so significantly superior to us in technology. Our latest technological developments pique their interest, and they are here to observe us and help us make choices.

“We say Lyra, we mean Vega,” - this is probably how one could paraphrase the poet’s words in relation to this constellation. Like many new dwarf parties, about which nothing is known except the popular name of the leader, the bright star Vega has acquired a small, but “sovereign” constellation. The area of ​​this “state” in the sky is 285 square meters. degrees, and the “capital” - Vega - ranks 5th in brightness among all the stars in the sky. Lyra borders the Swan (in the east), the Dragon (in the north), Hercules (in the west), and the Chanterelle (in the south) and has no “territorial claims” to them. The center of the constellation culminates at local midnight in the first week of July.

Finding Lyra in the sky, whether you live in a city or in a village, will not be difficult - just raise your head higher. There, almost at the zenith, select the brightest bluish-white star. This is Vega (α Lyrae), visible even in the city center, in conditions of extreme illumination (see also the all-sky map on).

I hope that you still chose a darker place for observations, and therefore, a little lower and to the left of Vega, you will notice four stars of 3-4 magnitude, located in the form of a parallelogram (the two lower stars are slightly brighter than the upper ones). Add to them one more star, lying slightly to the left of Vega - that, in fact, is the entire constellation of Lyra. Today, dear reader, we will try, as far as possible, to get to know him better.

First of all, of course, let's look at the brightest object of the constellation - Vega. This star, quite close (25 light years) to us, has a mass three times greater, a temperature twice as great, and a brightness 60 times greater than our daylight star.

It was probably due to its great brightness that Vega became the first star to be photographed. The historical daguerreotype was obtained on the night of July 16-17, 1850 at the Harvard Observatory using a 38-cm refractor. The insensitive emulsion required 100 seconds. exposure to register the light from the star.

In catalogs, a Lyrae appears as a multiple star. Vega has four faint "satellites" that actually have nothing in common with it other than the optical effect of being close together. The companions are drowned in the bright light of Vega, but still with a 150-200 mm telescope with high magnification you can try to detect the presence of the two brightest of them. Vega E is located 90" northeast of the main star, Vega B is 75" south. Both components are approximately 9th magnitude.

β Lyrae (Sheliak) - the lower right of the quadrangle of stars in the constellation Lyra - a well-known eclipsing variable star. It consists of two components, which, due to their very close proximity to each other, have taken an elongated elliptical shape. The brightness of β Lyrae constantly varies from 3.3 m to 4.3 m, so its variability can be easily seen with the naked eye. Minima of β Lyra regularly occur once every 13 days, which corresponds to the period of circulation of the components in this system.

The nearby star Sulafat (γ Lyrae) has a magnitude of 3.2 m and can serve as a comparison star for observations of β Lyrae. As a second comparison star, you can choose Lyrae (4.3 m), located 7° to the northwest.

Let's now look a little higher: 2° northeast of Vega there is one wonderful star - ε Lyrae. Did you think there were two of them? Congratulations, you have not just normal, but very sharp vision.

If you were unable to notice the duality of ε Lyrae with the naked eye, then take any binoculars or spotting scope - they will easily resolve the star into two white components (separation 209"). Unfortunately, this is where the capabilities of binoculars end, and for further inspection of β Lyrae we need You will need a telescope (for example, "Mizar"). By installing an eyepiece with maximum magnification, you will find that each of the stars of this system has broken up, in turn, into two components, forming a beautiful quartet of white stars of approximately the same brightness. This is where the name ε Lyrae comes from: “double-double.” And V. Herschel was the first to draw attention to it in August 1779. Currently, the separation of the stars in the northern pair (ε 1) is 2.6", and in the southern pair (ε 2) - 2.3". mutual arrangements V different years shown in the figure.

Having descended in declination just 2° to the south, we will stumble upon another double star - ζ Lyrae. It is as bright as a double-double, and both of its blue-white components, separated by 44", are perfectly visible through field binoculars.

To complete our tour of the bright stars of this constellation, let's move 2° to the southeast to find δ Lyrae there. The very first glance at it convinces us that this wide pair is the best of all that we have seen in the sky this night. The brighter star (δ 2) has a saturated orange, while its neighbor (δ 1), removed by as much as 620" has a noticeable bluish tint. The color contrast is even more striking after all those colorless, whitish stars that we have already examined. The diffuse stellar quality gives additional charm to this spectacle the Stephenson 1 cluster, onto which δ Lyrae is projected. A couple of dozen faint stars, widely scattered across the 20" diameter area, create a beautiful background in the field of view of small instruments and binoculars, in which two colored stars stand out especially strongly. And it’s simply surprising why this open cluster was not included in either the New General Catalog (NGC) or the additional Index Catalog (1C).

Our next object, on the contrary, has never been deprived of the attention of both professional astronomers and amateur astronomers. As you probably already guessed, we're talking about about the planetary Ring Nebula (M57). It is located approximately in the middle between β and γ Lyrae (a little closer to β Lyrae) and reveals its disk even when observed through 20x binoculars. The Mizar telescope with medium magnification will show that the nebula's disk is noticeably elongated, and the 150-200 mm instrument will reveal details of the ring-shaped structure of this object. And only the central star of the nebula, which has a magnitude of 15 m, remains inaccessible for visual observations with amateur telescopes.

Lyra has another object from the Messier catalog - the globular cluster M56, which lies in the star-rich region of the Milky Way, halfway from γ Lyrae to Albireo (β Cygni). In binoculars, it appears as a hazy spot 2" in diameter with a slight increase in brightness towards the center. A 200mm telescope in good weather conditions will be able to partially resolve the cluster and will show a few faint stars around its edges.

And what objects from the NGC catalog that are available to deep sky lovers does the Lyra constellation have in its reserve? Mizar owners can try their hand at the open star cluster NGC 6791. It is located 1° southeast of θ Lyrae. In a telescope, the cluster appears as a hazy spot with weak central condensation and a ragged structure at the edges. Will you be able to see any interesting details?

For owners of larger instruments, we can offer something more complex. 6° north of ε Lyrae, in the same field of view of the telescope, there are a couple of faint galaxies: the elliptical NGC 6702 and the spiral NGC 6703. To find the latter you will need at least a 15-20 cm telescope, while NGC 6702, judging by the descriptions, is barely guessed from observations with a 25-cm instrument. Well, it goes without saying that success in searching for them can be achieved only if there is no illumination at the observation site and good transparency of the atmosphere.

At the end of the route, let's find the irregular variable star T Lyrae. Its brilliance ranges from 7.8 m to 9.6 m, but it is interesting to us for its truly red color. Τ Lyrae is not easy to find among the large number of stars of similar magnitude southwest of Vega, but once it enters the field of view of your telescope, you will not confuse it with anything else.

Lyra(ukr. Lyra) ( lat. Lyra, abbreviated Lyr) is a small but very spectacular constellation. It borders on the constellations Cygnus, Draco, Hercules and Chanterelle. The main stars of the constellation form a parallelogram, in which the inhabitants of Ancient Greece recognized their favorite musical instrument - the lyre.

History and mythology of the name

Lyra is a constellation known since ancient times; several versions of legends and myths about it have reached us.
In ancient Babylon this constellation was called the “great mother” or “Goat”. According to other sources, it was called a “bearded vulture” (large hawk). The Arabs called it "falling eagle".
There is evidence that the constellation was called “Turtle”. This is not surprising, since the first lyres were made from turtle shells.
The Lyre came into the culture of European peoples from the ancient Greeks. There are several versions of ancient Greek myths:

• Arion's lyre from the island of Lesbos, placed in the sky by Apollo. With his play, he conquered a school of dolphins, who later slept his life.
• The Lyre of Orpheus was given to him by either Hermes or Apollo. After the death of the poet, his lyre washed up on the island of Lesbos and was picked up by Sappho.
• Perhaps the lyre of Apollo himself or Hermes. Hermes made a lyre from a turtle on the first day of his life, and he also stole Apollo’s cows. The criminal caught by the Olympians was forced to present the lyre as a gift to Apollo.
• There is a version that this is the lyre of Theseus.

The ancient Incas called Lira Urkuchilay (ram) and the shepherds knelt and made sacrifices.

Despite its small size, the constellation is very full of beautiful and interesting objects.
Stars
The constellation contains one of the brightest stars (second only to Aktrur) in the northern hemisphere and the fifth brightest in the entire night sky - Vega beautiful blue and white star. The name comes from the corruption of “al-Waqi” translated from Arabic as “falling”, the rest of the phrase: “falling eagle” or vulture. Its proximity to the earth (25 light years) and significant brightness made it one of the most studied stars. Given Vega's intense infrared radiation, it should theoretically have a residual dust disk.
Vega is an ideal test for an apochromat refractor. Only a high-quality instrument will show this star as pure white, without colored halos.
Another test, but for the naked eye, is the famous epsilon (ε ) Lyres. Only a keen eye can distinguish two 5th magnitude stars here, separated by 3.5 arcminutes. The test doesn't end there—small telescopes come into play. If you look at epsilon through a telescope with an aperture of 70mm, you can see that each of the stars is double. Testing can be continued further on much larger instruments. But the task is somewhat different - to visually separate this system using the smallest possible magnification. In good pipes, with an excellent atmosphere, this can be done with a magnification of even less than 70 times!
Interesting Variable Stars
Sheliak (β Lyr / Beta Lyrae, the name comes from the Arabic الشلياق, meaning “turtle” or “harp”) is a bright eclipsing variable star in the constellation Lyra. The brightness of this star varies from +3.4m to +4.3m with a period of 12.9 days. The period gradually increases (by 19 seconds per year), which is associated with the loss of matter into the surrounding space. The variability of this star was discovered by John Goodrike in 1784. β Lyrae became the prototype of a whole class of variable stars - eclipsing binaries of the β Lyr type. The components of these stars are so close that they are deformed by mutual gravity and take on a melon-shaped shape.
RR Lyra
It is the prototype of RR Lyra variables. Changes apparent magnitude from 7m to 8m with a period of 13 hours 36 minutes. Its variability was discovered in 1901 by Scottish astronomer Williamina Fleming at the Harvard Observatory.
R Lyres(13 Lyrae) is a semi-regular variable star. A red giant that varies in magnitude from 4.0m to 5.0m. The average period is close to 50 days, although in some cases the time intervals between successive maximums and minimums may be different. The star is significantly brighter, larger but cooler (< 3,500 K) Солнца. Относится к классу полуправильных переменных звезд. Эту звезду нельзя путать с переменной звездой RR Лиры.
Stars with exoplanets
The constellation Lyra is the leader in the number of discovered exoplanets. This is because most of them were discovered using the famous Kepler orbital telescope. Lyra is one of three constellations (along with neighboring Cygnus and Draco) that were in the field of view of the Kepler.Stellarium mission

Stars with exoplanets (Stellarium)

Around the orange subgiant HD 177830– one of the earliest discovered exoplanets is rotating. The planet is 1.5 times more massive than Jupiter, and rotates in an eccentric orbit with a period of 407 days. The second planet is closer to the star, (mass 0.15 Jupiter, orbital period 111 days) discovered in 2011.
With the naked eye, with an exceptionally good sky of course 😉, you can see the stars: HD 173416(a yellow giant with a planet twice the mass of Jupiter) HD 176051 (double star low mass containing another high mass planet) and HD 178911(a triple system consisting of a nearby binary and visually distinguishable star) This ( HD 178911B) stars have a planet with a mass >7.35 ± 0.60 M J,.
In system (star of apparent magnitude +13.75 m (V), spectral class K2V) 5 planets have been discovered, and (mass 0.11 M J, radius 0.126 R J semi-major axis 0.718 AU, orbital period 267.291 JD, inclination 89.9 deg) is in the habitable zone.

Deep space objects
The most famous object is the planetary nebula M 57(NGC6720 “Smoker’s Ring” 🙂) The object looks like a slightly elongated ring lying around a central star. You can visually notice M 57 as a tiny foggy speck with good binoculars, but to see the shape you need a telescope with at least a 110mm aperture. https://youtu.be/OiYRL3HFULU

M 57 from the club pavilion (2008)

The radius of the nebula is about a third of a light year.
The nebula is located at a distance of 0.61 kiloparsecs (2000 light years) from Earth. The glow of the nebula is caused by the ultraviolet radiation of the white dwarf (visible magnitude 15.8, surface temperature 120,000 Kelvin, luminosity 200 times greater than the Sun, and mass 0.61-0.62 solar masses) which ionizes the gases of the nebula - the remains of the ejected atmosphere of the central star, a former red giant.
M 56(NGC 6779) is a globular cluster with an apparent magnitude of +8.3m.
NGC 6791(OCL 142) - open cluster. Apparent magnitude +9.5.
The cluster is approximately 8 billion years old, with a ratio of iron to hydrogen more than double that of the Sun. One of the oldest and most metal-rich clusters in the Milky Way
Among the faintest stars, NGC 6791 is a group of white dwarfs that are 6 billion years old.
Galaxies

In the center are NGC 6203 and 6203, signatures in green from the PGC catalogue.

Even though Lyra is simply “filled” with stars, galaxies are still present. The brightest and most accessible for observation with an average telescope are N.G.C. 6702 And 6703 with magnitude +12.3m and +11.3m. In the general photo of the constellations at the beginning of this note, they are barely noticeable, but on a larger scale they can already be seen. It is quite possible that through a telescope it will be possible to notice NGC 6792 spiral galaxy with (apparent magnitude +12.5 m).

Of course, with a large instrument, it will take a whole night to fully familiarize yourself with all the objects of this constellation.

Located in the constellation Lyra radiant meteor shower Lyrid, in which during the peak of activity (April 16-25) up to 15-20 meteors per hour are observed.

In summer, the sky on cloudless nights is especially beautiful. It seems that the number of flickering dots overhead has increased many times after winter. In the northern hemisphere, almost in the middle of the celestial dome, right above the top of the observer’s head, you can see a fairly bright star. This is Vega, the alpha of the constellation Lyra, a small celestial pattern located in such a favorable location with last days spring and mid-autumn. The image of an ancient musical instrument, despite its modest size compared to its neighbors, has attracted the attention of astronomers since ancient times.

Environment and form

The constellation Lyra contains 54 luminaries visible from Earth with the naked eye. Her closest neighbors in the sky are the Swan, Hercules, the Dragon and the Chanterelle. Finding the brightest point of the picture, Vega, is quite simple, not only because of its position. Alpha Lyrae is one of the peaks of the Summer Triangle asterism, which consists entirely of very bright and clearly visible stars. Its two other corners are designated Deneb from and Altair, referring to the celestial image of the Eagle.

The shape of the constellation Lyra resembles a quadrangle, all the vertices of which are clearly visible on a clear night. Vega is located a short distance from one of them.

Constellation Lyra: legend

As you know, this celestial drawing bears the name of an ancient musical instrument. In Ancient Greece, lyres were made from turtle shells. The instrument was named after the animals: the word “lyre” translated means “turtle”. According to legend, the first such object, capable of producing melodic sounds, was given to people by Hermes. Lyra always accompanied the mythical singer Orpheus. According to legend, his music and voice captivated both gods and people. Where the sounds of the lyre were heard, flowers bloomed and birds sang. Orpheus had a difficult fate: he lost his wife, Eurydice, went down to the kingdom of the dead for her, tried to bring her back, but at the last moment he violated one of the main conditions of Hades. Having lost his beloved, Orpheus threw away the lyre and left to live out his life in silence and sorrow. The gods, in awe of the sounds of the instrument, took it to heaven and made it a constellation.

Lovers

The star Vega is associated with a separate legend of Eastern origin. Japanese and correlates it with a beautiful goddess who fell in love with a mortal. The young man is also placed in the sky: this is Altair from the constellation Eagle. The goddess's father, having learned about the secret love, became angry and forbade his daughter to meet with her chosen one. Since then, Vega and Altair have been separated by a heavenly river, Milky Way. Lovers are given the opportunity to meet only once a year, on the seventh of July, when forty thousand people build a bridge between them. After the night, the goddess returns and mourns the separation with bitter tears. Salty drops are seen from Earth as falling meteors, the Perseids.

Alpha

Since ancient times, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra has attracted not only the eyes of storytellers. Scientists have always been interested in her. The unique position of the star and its visibility have led to the fact that today Vega is one of the most studied stars in space.

In terms of brightness, it ranks fifth in the entire sky and second in the northern hemisphere after Arcturus. Apparent Vega - 0.03. It belongs to objects of the spectral class A0Va, its mass exceeds the solar one by 2.1 times, and its diameter is 2.3.

The future of the luminary

The star Vega is a blue-white giant. According to scientists, it has been shining for 455 thousand years. For a human, this is an amazing figure, but by the standards of the Universe, Vega does not live that long. For comparison, the Sun has been illuminating our part of the Galaxy for 4.5 billion years. The intensity of radiation and other characteristics will not allow the main star of Lyra to exist for long. Astronomers predict Vega's extinction and destruction after about another 450 thousand years.

Standard

Thanks to its position, Vega has been well studied, which, in turn, has served to establish it as a definite standard in astronomy. Since the mid-19th century, the magnitudes of several hundred luminaries have been determined from its brightness. Vega became one of seven stars located at such a distance from the Sun that cosmic dust does not distort the radiation coming from them, on the basis of which the UBV photometric system was perfected, making it possible to determine some physical parameters of the luminaries.

Despite the seemingly comprehensive study of Vega, there are a number of questions related to it that have not received comprehensive answers to date. One of them undermines the "reputation" of Alpha Lyrae as a standard in astronomy. In the last century, “problems” were discovered in the star’s brightness. The data obtained indicated that he was wavering. In this case, Vega should be classified as a variable star. There is no clear opinion on this matter yet.

Rotation

In the 60s of the 20th century, the usual definition of Vega’s spectral class also came into question. It turned out that Alpha Lyrae is too hot and bright for standard representatives of its type. The fact did not receive a decent explanation until 2005, when the solution was found.

It turned out that Vega rotates around its axis at high speed (at the equator the figure reaches 274 km/s). Under such conditions, the shape of the space object changes. Vega is not a more or less regular sphere, but an ellipse, elongated at the equator and flattened at the poles. As a result, contrary to custom, the northern and southern outskirts of the star are located closer to the hot core than the equatorial zone. The poles heat up more and glow brighter.

This hypothesis arose in the 80s of the last century and was confirmed by observations in 2005. It explains both the anomalous and its brightness.

Disk

Vega is characterized by another feature: it has a circumstellar dust disk. She became the first luminary in which such a formation was discovered. The disk consists of the remains of cosmic objects that collided with each other near the star.

The discovery of the disk was preceded by the discovery of excess infrared radiation from Vega. Today, all luminaries with a similar characteristic are designated as “vega-like.”

Some features in the structure of the dust disk suggest that a huge planet similar to Jupiter orbits Alpha Lyrae. So far this data has not been confirmed, but if this happens, Vega will be the first brightest star, having a planet.

Sheliak

Among the interesting objects of the celestial musical instrument is not only Vega. The constellation Lyra has several multiples. The attention of scientists is primarily attracted by Sheliak, beta Lyra. It belongs to the eclipsing variable luminaries. The system consists of a bright blue-white dwarf and a large, but dimmer white star, both belonging to the main sequence. They are separated by 40 million kilometers, which is very small by cosmic standards. As a result, the substance continuously flows from one of the partners to the other.

The gas moving from the “donor” forms an accretion disk around the “recipient”. Moreover, both stars are surrounded by a common gas shell, which constantly releases part of its matter into the surrounding space.

Initially, the mass ratio of the companions looked different. Today's donor was more impressive. Over time, he turned into a giant and began to give up his substance. Now its mass is estimated at 3 solar masses, while this parameter for the companion is equal to 13 masses of our star.

At some distance from the main pair there is a third star, Beta Lyrae B. It is 80 times brighter than the Sun. Beta Lyrae B is a spectroscopic binary (period is 4.34 days).

Epsilon

The constellation Lyra also has a star system consisting of four components. This is Epsilon Lyrae, splitting into two components Epsilon 1 and Epsilon 2 even when observed with binoculars. Each of them represents a pair of luminaries. All four components are white stars, belonging to the same spectral class as Sirius. Epsilon 1 and 2 rotate with a period of 244 thousand years.

Ring and ball

Almost any celestial picture can boast of beautiful nebulae in its “territory”. The constellation Lyra is no exception. A photo of a cosmic object located between Gamma and Beta Lyrae gives a clear idea of ​​the origin of its name.

The Ring Nebula, in its shape, indeed resembles a corresponding piece of jewelry. It adorns the constellation Lyra, located at a distance of 2 thousand light years from Earth. The age of the nebula is estimated to be 5.5 thousand years. You can see it with binoculars. The nebula's beautiful glow comes from ultraviolet radiation emitted by the white dwarf. This was once the core of a massive star.

The spherical M56 is located not far from the nebula.

Their proximity, however, is imaginary: M56 is 32.9 thousand light years away from Earth. In the photographs, it resembles a ball, compacted towards the middle, where the number of stars per unit of space is quite high. There are approximately 12 variable stars here. The globular cluster is difficult to observe with amateur equipment because it is lost in the background of the Milky Way.

Lyra is a small constellation, but nevertheless interesting. Its “territory” hosts representatives of many objects that are studied by astronomy. The stars and constellations surrounding Lyra may appear more impressive and worthy of attention. On the other hand, bright Vega alone is enough to “eclipse” them all. Especially if we remember that the magnitudes of these luminaries were quite possibly determined on the basis of data on Alpha Lyrae. This heavenly drawing, therefore, is a clear illustration of the saying “small but mighty.” However, the same can be said about its legendary prototype, the lyre of Orpheus.