What is Lyra?

Lyra is a beautiful little constellation in the summer night sky. It is an integral part of the "Summer Triangle". Alpha is the main constellation of Lyra, located in the west of the Milky Way. Our country calls it Vega. There are four small stars near Vega, forming a small diamond. That little shape is the shuttle that Weaver uses to weave. While knitting, the Weaver Girl looked up at the Cowherd and their two children (three stars in Aquila) on the bank of the Milky Way.

In ancient Greek mythology, the stars such as Weaver Girl and Shuttle were imagined as a lyre. This lyre is the singer orpheus. She has a beautiful voice and a beautiful golden harp. His singing and the sound of the lyre can make the rocks cry and stop the water. Soon, orpheus married the beautiful Eurydice and lived a very happy life. Unfortunately, Eurydice died suddenly, and orpheus, who was extremely sad, decided to take his wife back to the place of death. So he walked into hell with a golden harp and played a sad song. Finally, he touched Pluto, the king of the Yellow Land, and the king agreed to let his wife return to the world with him. But the king warned orpheus not to look back before reaching the earth. orpheus agreed to the king's request and ran back to the earth with his wife. Just as he was dying, orpheus got carried away and looked back at his wife. He was punished for disobeying the warning of the country and lost his beloved wife again. Soon, orpheus lifted his golden harp to the sky and became Laila.

In Lyra, besides Vega, there are also the famous Vega II, Graduation II and Spherical Nebula. Weaver Girl 2 is a multi-star, which looks like a binary star to the naked eye, but it is a pair of binary stars measured by instruments, so it is also called "four stars". The second wife is a famous food change star. The eclipse star is actually a binary star, and it is a binary star that covers each other in mutual rotation. Its brightness seems to change periodically.

You can also see the spectacular meteor shower in Lyra, which occurs from April 19 to 23 every year, especially on April 2 1 day. The radiant point of the meteor shower is located near K star in Lyra next to Vega. In China's ancient books, there is a record of this constellation "The stars fall like a rainy night".