(ORDO NEWS) — The constellation Orion occupies a dominant position in the nighttime winter sky in the northern hemisphere of our planet.
It is quite large in size and contains many bright stars, such as: Betelgeuse – in the region of Orion’s shoulder, Rigel – just below the belt, as well as three stars on the belt of the legendary hunter.
These “special signs” make it quite easy to identify the constellation in the night sky, even for novice astronomers.
How about learning more about the stars along Orion’s belt? They are perhaps the best-known trinity of stars in Western culture and have been a delight to amateur astronomers throughout the history of space observation.
The three stars of the belt are named Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak. According to Ronald Mudlaen of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the names of these stars are translated as follows: Mintaka (located in the west) means “belt”, Alnilam (center) means “pearl belt”, and Altintak (on the right) translates as “ring” . The stars in Orion’s Belt are 800 to 1000 light years away from Earth.
Compared to our Sun, Orion’s belt stars are characterized as follows:
Mintaka: 20 times more powerful and 7,000 times brighter (The temperature on the surface of the star is 33,000 °C).
Alnilam: 20 times more powerful and 18,000 times brighter (The temperature on the surface of a star is 28,000 ° C).
Alnitak: 20 times more powerful and 10,000 times brighter (The temperature on the surface of the star is 33,000 ° C).
“These stars all probably formed around the same time almost 10 million years ago from molecular clouds that astronomers have detected in the constellation of Orion,” Maddlaen says.
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