Universidade Federal do Ceará
Departamento de Química Orgânica e Inorgânica

He dialed to the time in the Age of Leo, basing to the structure of the Sphinx, and found the exact alignment in 10500BC. One of the most fascinating mysteries related to Orion’s Belt is the Pyramids of Giza. This idea was popularized by Robert Bauval in the Orion Correlation Theory.

More fun facts about the Orion constellation

• Below the three belt stars, you will find Orion Nebula, which you can view from Earth.
• Some dots that make up constellations are actually more than one star, but from a great distance they look like a single object.
• Additionally, it can be seen in the morning sky from late July to November.
• In the star chart convention used since the 18th century, it lies between the river Eridanus and the Unicorn.
• The stars were seen as a metaphor for two people who could never unite.
• Also, it is one of the most popular astrophotography targets.

Continue from Orion’s Belt drawing a straight line until you reach a bright star — that’s Sirus. In Western culture, you may sometimes hear Orion’s Belt referred to as the Three Kings in a biblical reference or the three sisters. In Chinese mythology, Orion’s Belt goes by The Weighing Beam. Two books of the Bible — the Book of Job and the Book of Amos — mention Orion’s Belt, along with another well-known asterism, the Pleiades.

Discovering the Universe Through the Constellation Orion

• We may never detect it, though, because no light can escape black holes, making them invisible.
• Starting from Rigel and moving clockwise, the rest of the hexagon includes Sirius (in Canis Major), Procyon (Canis Minor), Castor and Pollux (Gemini), Capella (Auriga) and Aldeberan (Taurus).
• The Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33, IC 434) is a small absorption nebula in the constellation Orion.
• Greek travelers staring into the night sky cooked up all sorts of stories about what the stars meant and represented.
• Orion’s Belt appears widely in historical literature and in various cultures, under many different names.
• Conveniently, if you follow the line extending through Orion’s belt from your right to your left, you will soon “run into” Sirius.

A line drawn through the Belt stars to the northwest leads to Aldebaran, the luminary of the constellation Taurus and the 14th brightest star in sky. Aldebaran appears as a member of the V-shaped Hyades cluster, which outlines the head of the Bull, but is much closer to us than the cluster. Rigel is also a young star, estimated to be 8 million years old. Like Betelgeuse, Rigel is much larger and heavier than our Sun.

When Can We See Orion’s Belt?

The asterism is easy to find because is part of one of the most prominent stellar patterns in the northern sky, the hourglass-shaped constellation figure of Orion. The asterism and the constellation dominate the evening sky from November to February. Robert Bauval has noticed that the least bright star in the western side of Orion’s Belt, Mintaka, is slightly out of line from the two. To prove his theory, Bauval used modern astronomical computer programs to see the position of the sky in Giza. He tried to look into the position of the sky in the supposed time when the Pyramids were being built, in 2500BC.

NASA, Northrop Grumman to Send Medical, Technology Studies to Space

For observers in the southern hemisphere, the hourglass figure of Orion appears upside down. In January, Orion’s Belt appears high in the northeastern sky, parallel to the horizon, around 10 pm. By April, it moves to the northwest and sets earlier in the evening, appearing perpendicular to the horizon.

About NASA

It shines at magnitude 6.85 and consists of a spectroscopic binary pair. The two components orbit each other with a period of about 30 days. Even though it is a young star, Alnilam is already approaching the end of its life.

In the Southern Hemisphere, it will be high above the northern horizon — Massey. During the winter months, Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper are both prominent in the night sky. The constellations appear in different parts of the sky, with the bright Gemini Orion’s Bet and the faint Lynx between them. A line extended through the Big Dipper’s bowl leads to Castor, the second brightest star in Gemini. The brighter Pollux is part of the Winter Circle, a large hexagonal asterism also formed by Capella in Auriga, Aldebaran in Taurus, Rigel in Orion, Sirius in Canis Major, and Procyon in Canis Minor.
Aldebaran the brightest star in the constellation of Taurus the Bull. We can find this red star if we draw a line connecting Orion’s Belt and extending it to the side of Mintaka. There are about 6,000 in the night sky that are visible to the naked eye but only 58 are selected. Two of these stars orbit each other and the third component orbits the pair. It only takes 5.7 days for the first two stars to orbit around one another because they are close. Since these stars orbit each other, there will be times when one passes in front of the other and covers it from our line of sight here on Earth.