|
Credit & Copyright: Ronald Davison
Explanation:
Orion is a familiar constellation.
The apparent positions of its stars in two dimensions
create a well-known pattern
on
the bowl
of planet Earth's night sky.
Orion may
not look quite so familiar in this 3D view though.
The
illustration reconstructs
the relative positions of Orion's
bright stars, including data from the
Hipparcus catalog of
parallax
distances.
The most distant star shown is Alnilam.
The middle one in the projected line of three that make up Orion's
belt when viewed from planet Earth, Alnilam is nearly 2,000 light-years
away, almost 3 times as far as
fellow belt stars Alnitak and Mintaka.
Though Rigel and Betelgeuse apparently shine brighter in planet Earth's sky,
that makes more distant Alnilam intrinsically (in absolute magnitude)
the brightest of the familiar stars in Orion.
In the Hipparcus catalog, errors in measured parallaxes for Orion's stars
can translate in to distance errors of a 100 light-years
or so.
|
January February March April May June July August September October November December |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Orion
Publications with words: Orion
See also: