{"id":63866,"date":"2024-09-17T08:10:13","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T08:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/67478923-072d-4b92-b629-b775753fa40c"},"modified":"2024-09-18T10:39:42","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T10:39:42","slug":"sulafat-in-lyra","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/rss_feed\/sulafat-in-lyra\/","title":{"rendered":"Sulafat in Lyra"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Pete Lawrence\n <\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 17 September 2024 at 08:10 AM<\/p>

\n\n

Sulafat is the second brightest star in the constellation Lyra, and its name comes from the Arabic for turtle, ancient harps being traditionally made from tortoiseshell.\u00a0<\/p>

Lyra is one of the iconic constellations of summer. Its brightest star, Vega<\/a> (Alpha (\u03b1) Lyrae), is easy to find, being one of the vertices of the large Summer Triangle<\/a> asterism.<\/p>

The constellation Lyra. Click to expand. Credit: Pete Lawrence<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Hanging southeast of Vega is a squashed diamond pattern, the body of the harp-like instrument represented by the constellation.<\/p>
In its southeast corner is Sulafat (Gamma (\u03b3) Lyrae), at mag. +3.3 the second-brightest star in Lyra after mag. +0.0 Vega.<\/p>
**Facts about star Sulafat<\/strong><\/h2>** $\"Location$
Location of the star Sulafat in the constellation Lyra. Click to expand. Credit: Pete Lawrence<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Sulafat is a B9 III star, indicating it\u2019s a blue-white giant. It is estimated to be 15.4 times larger and 2,430 times more luminous than our Sun, and has a mass 5.8 times greater.<\/p>
It\u2019s a dying star, having ceased hydrogen fusion approximately 150,000 years ago.<\/p>
In 200,000 years, it will have become an orange giant, eventually ending its days as a white dwarf<\/a>.<\/p>
$\"Use$
Use stars Sulafat and Sheliak to help you locate the Ring Nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage (STScI\/AURA)-ESA\/Hubble Collaboration<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Between 1909 and 2001 it was believed to be a spectroscopic binary<\/a> with a period of 25.6 days; however, it\u2019s now considered a single star.\u00a0<\/p>
Sulafat makes a pair with mag. +3.5 Sheliak (Beta (\u03b2) Lyrae), 2\u00b0 to the west-northwest.<\/p>
The famous Ring Nebula<\/a>, M57 \u2013 an iconic showpiece deep-sky object of summer \u2013 sits three-fifths of the way along the line from Sulafat towards Sheliak.<\/p>
You can see this for yourself by spotting the location of M57 in our charts above.<\/p>
***This guide appeared in the September 2024 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n***
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By Pete Lawrence Published: Tuesday, 17 September 2024 at 08:10 AM Sulafat is the second brightest star in the constellation Lyra, and its name comes from the Arabic for turtle, ancient harps being traditionally made from tortoiseshell.\u00a0 Lyra is one of the iconic constellations of summer. Its brightest star, Vega (Alpha (\u03b1) Lyrae), is easy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":63867,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/sulafat-in-lyra.jpg",1200,1129,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/sulafat-in-lyra-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/sulafat-in-lyra-300x282.jpg",300,282,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/sulafat-in-lyra-768x723.jpg",768,723,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/sulafat-in-lyra-1024x963.jpg",800,752,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/sulafat-in-lyra.jpg",1200,1129,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2024\/09\/sulafat-in-lyra.jpg",1200,1129,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Pete Lawrence Published: Tuesday, 17 September 2024 at 08:10 AM Sulafat is the second brightest star in the constellation Lyra, and its name comes from the Arabic for turtle, ancient harps being traditionally made from tortoiseshell.\u00a0 Lyra is one of the iconic constellations of summer. Its brightest star, Vega (Alpha (\u03b1) Lyrae), is easy…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/63866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}