Vega

Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra and is the fifth brightest star in the sky. The name of the star comes from Arabic and means "The Swooping Eagle". As part of the constellaion Lyra it represents a jewel set in the body of the harp. Vega is only 25.3 light years from Earth. It is a main sequence star like our sun, however it is twice as massive and burns fifty times brighter than our sun. Vega's current age is between 200 and 500 million years (Our sun is about 4.6 billion years old). Vega was the first star to ever be photographed, have it's spectrum analized, and it's parallax measured. It has also been in many Science Fiction novels and movies, such as "Contact." And in 14,000 AD Vega will become the North Star, replacing Polaris in the position in the sky.