How To Locate Orion’s Belt

In the Middle Ages, they were also referred to as the Staff of Jacob. Moreover, they point exactly to the left towards Sirius, the brightest Fixed Star in the sky. Orion’s Belt is a prominent asterism formed by three stars in the constellation Orion. The three bright blue stars – Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka – outline the belt in the constellation figure of the celestial Hunter. Appearing as three stars in a row, Orion’s Belt stars lie more than 1,000 light-years away and are among the brightest stars in the sky.

• To identify Aldebaran, follow Orion’s Belt in the opposite direction (from east to west) from how you identified Sirius.
• In Chinese mythology, they were known as The Weighing Beam.
• Two of the stars in Orion’s Belt, Mintaka and Alnitak, are actually star systems, meaning they consist of multiple stars located close to one another.
• Harry Potter fans may recognise the name Bellatrix, but might not know it’s the third-brightest star in Orion.
• Ancient Indians saw the figure as a king who was shot by an arrow, with the stars in Orion’s Belt representing the arrow.

Orion Stars

• With an effective temperature of about 29,500 K, it shines with 250,000 solar luminosities.
• It lies approximately 1,350 light-years from the Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 10.
• By identifying these two bright stars, we can also spot other important ones in the constellation of Orion.
• In contrast, icy-blue Rigel is a blue supergiant star 70,000 times more luminous than our own Sun.
• The famous three Marys of Orion’s Belt are also called Las Tres Marías in South America and Spain.
• But there’s nothing new about it, stars explode all the time.
• It has a radial velocity of around 350 km / 217 mi per second.

Though the time frame fit around the time of the visit of the Three Wise Men, experts from other places did not note the appearance, so it was not that bright. When King Herod heard about this, he became worried that someone will become a new king. He called the chief priests and scribes of his kingdom and asked them about the newborn king. The priests said that the baby is in Bethlehem of Judea, as it was in the prophecy. Upon knowing about this, King Herod called the three Wise Men and asked about the star that they were following. He told the wise men to bring him the word when they have found the child so that he can also pay homage to the new king.

Mintaka

It is a direct reference to the biblical tale of the three kings who offered gifts to the baby Christ. Alnitak is a triple star system, Alnilam is 375,000 times brighter than the Sun and Mintaka is a binary star system (two stars orbiting each other). In ancient Egyptian mythology, the stars in Orion’s Belt represented the resting place of the soul of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the deceased. There is even a theory, proposed since the late 20th century, that the ancient Egyptians positioned the pyramids of Giza to align with the stars in Orion’s Belt roughly 4,500 years ago.

To Sirius

The mass loss is caused by the strong stellar winds that may reach up to 2,000 km/s. Alnitak, Zeta Orionis (ζ Ori), is the leftmost star of Orion’s Belt. It is the primary star in a triple star system located approximately 1,260 light-years away. The Belt of Orion is one of the three prominent asterisms that define the constellation figure of Orion, along with Orion’s Sword and Orion’s Shield. Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe isfeatured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

The Orion Nebula

The cluster appears as a single starry point through binoculars, but its four brightest stars are revealed through medium-aperture telescopes. At opposite corners of the figure of Orion are its two brightest stars. Orion is easy to spot because of the three stars in an almost straight line that run through its middle. These are (left to right) Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka, and they form Orion’s Belt, an asterism (pattern of stars) within the larger constellation. Two of the stars in Orion’s Belt, Mintaka and Alnitak, are actually star systems, meaning they consist Orion’s Bet of multiple stars located close to one another.

We can see it during the winter months in the northern latitudes, from about November to February. During that time, the season in the Southern Hemisphere is summer. Observers from the south of the equator can see Orion’s Belt during summer months. From anywhere on Earth, the best time to see the Celestial Hunter’s Belt is at 9 pm during the first month of the year, in January. Chances are excellent that if you can’t yet picture what Orion looks like, you’ll have an “aha!” moment once you lay eyes on either a star chart or the real thing.

Betelgeuse is the bright star left of Orion’s Belt, and Rigel is on the right. By identifying these two bright stars, we can also spot other important ones in the constellation of Orion. Bellatrix is the star opposite Betelgeuse and the one opposite Rigel is Saiph. The Flame Nebula (NGC 2024, Sh2-277) is an emission nebula in the constellation Orion.