Signs of a sizzling-hot world spotted around famous nearby star Vega
Vega has been imagined as home to alien intelligence. Now the bright star system is finally coming into focus.
March 10, 2021 9:22 a.m. PT
Artist s conception showing the scorching-hot planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star. A newly detected signal may indicate the presence of a similar planet orbiting the star Vega. NASA/JPL-CalTech
One of the brightest stars in the sky may host one of the most scorching-hot planets known.
Astronomers combed through a decade s worth of data on the nearby young star Vega, also a staple setting of science fiction stories like Carl Sagan s Contact, and found signs of a sweltering world in close orbit. They detail their research in a paper published in the Astronomical Journal.
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It s been a long and challenging year, but the night sky will serve up a treat Dec. 21 as Jupiter and Saturn appear to nearly touch just after sunset.
The great conjunction of the two planets will be the first glimpse of such a close angular pass since 1226 â nearly 800 years ago. Saturn and Jupiter appeared this close in 1623, only 14 years after Galileo s first telescope was invented. But that conjunction was too close to the sun to be seen.