Orion's Belt
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Orion's Belt is an asterism in the constellation of Orion. Other names include the Belt of Orion, the Three Kings, and the Three Sisters. The belt consists of three bright and easily identifiable collinear star systems – Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka – nearly equally spaced in a line, spanning an angular size of ~ (2.3°). Owing to the high surface temperatures of their constituent stars, the intense light emitted is blue-white in color. In spite of their spot-like appearance, only Alnilam is a single star; Alnitak is a triple star system, and Mintaka a sextuple. All three owe their luminosity to the presence of one or more blue supergiants. The brightest as viewed from Sol is Alnilam, with an apparent magnitude of 1.69, followed by Alnitak at 1.74 and Mintaka at 2.25. The ten stars of the three systems have a combined luminosity approximately 970,000 times that of the Sun. Orion's Belt appears widely in historical literature and in various cultures, under many different names. It has played a central role in astral navigation in the Northern hemisphere since prehistoric times. It is considered to be among the clearest constellations in the winter sky, although it is not visible during summer, when the Sun is too visually close.


Belt features

The names of the three stars that comprise the belt derive from
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
. All three were once known as () meaning " string of pearls" with spelling variants that include and , which was suggested by Knobel to be mistakes in transliteration or copy errors.


Alnitak

Alnitak (ζ Orionis) is a triple star system at the eastern end of Orion's belt and is 1,260 light-years from the
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
. Alnitak B is a 4th-magnitude B-type star which orbits Alnitak A every 1,500 years. The primary (Alnitak A) is itself a close binary, comprising Alnitak Aa (a blue supergiant of spectral type O9.7 Ibe and an apparent magnitude of 2.0) and Alnitak Ab (a blue subgiant of spectral type B1IV and an apparent magnitude of about 4). Alnitak Aa is estimated to be up to 28 times as massive as the Sun and have a diameter 20 times greater. It is the brightest star of class O in the night sky.


Alnilam

Alnilam (ε Orionis) is a singular B0 supergiant, approximately 2,000 light-years away from Earth and magnitude 1.69. It is the 29th-brightest star in the sky and the fourth-brightest in Orion. It is 375,000 times more luminous than the Sun. Its spectrum serves as one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are classified.


Mintaka

Mintaka (δ Orionis) is a six-star system at the western end of the Belt, and the star system closest to the celestial equator. It is the nearest massive multiple stellar system, composed of three spectroscopic components. The most luminous individual star is a O9.5 II blue giant. Together, the system has a combined ~250,000 solar luminosity. Mintaka is 1,200 light-years distant, with a visual magnitude of 2.25. The innermost binary has a period of 5.732 days and a semi-major axis of approximately 32 million kilometers (0.22 AU), with the two massive stars eclipsing each other twice per completed orbit as viewed from Sol, from which regular minor dips in brightness arise.


References in history and culture

Richard Hinckley Allen lists many folk names for the Belt of Orion. English ones include:
Jacob Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...
's Rod or Jacob's Staff; Peter's Staff; the Golden Yard-arm; The L, or Ell; The Ell and
Yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English units, English unit of length in both the British imperial units, imperial and US United States customary units, customary systems of measurement equalling 3 foot (unit), feet or 36 inches. Sinc ...
; the Yard-stick, and the Yard-wand; the Ellwand; Our Lady's Wand; the
Magi Magi (), or magus (), is the term for priests in Zoroastrianism and earlier Iranian religions. The earliest known use of the word ''magi'' is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Per ...
/ the Three Kings;
the Three Marys The Three Marys (also spelled Maries) are women mentioned in the Gospel, canonical gospels' narratives of the crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The Gospels refer to several women named Mary. At various points of Chris ...
; or simply the Three Stars. The passage "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of
Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...
, or loose the bands of Orion?" is found in the
Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
's
Book of Job The Book of Job (), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The language of the Book of Job, combining post-Babylonia ...
, and a reference to Orion is found in the Book of Amos.
Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...
's poem '' The Princess'' describes Orion's belt as: In
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
's
Classic of Poetry The ''Classic of Poetry'', also ''Shijing'' or ''Shih-ching'', translated variously as the ''Book of Songs'', ''Book of Odes'', or simply known as the ''Odes'' or ''Poetry'' (; ''Shī''), is the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, co ...
, the asterism, under the name " Shen" (参), was paired with
Antares Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius. It has the Bayer designation α Scorpii, which is Latinisation of names, Latinised to Alpha Scorpii. Often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion", Antares is flanked by ...
, which is known as "Shang" (商), to be a metaphor for two people who could never unite. This might have stemmed from the observation that both Orion's Belt and Antares rise in the
east East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
and set in the
west West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...
, but Antares only rises once Orion's Belt has set and vice versa. The
Malay people Malays ( ; , Jawi: ) are an Austronesian ethnoreligious group native to eastern Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and coastal Borneo, as well as the smaller islands that lie between these locations. These locations are today part of the countries ...
refer to the Orion Belt as ''Bintang Tiga Beradik'' (literally "three brother stars"). This constellation is often used to indicate the direction of the
qibla The qibla () is the direction towards the Kaaba in the Great Mosque of Mecca, Sacred Mosque in Mecca, which is used by Muslims in various religious contexts, particularly the direction of prayer for the salah. In Islam, the Kaaba is believed to ...
, the Islamic direction of prayer for the people of the
Malay Archipelago The Malay Archipelago is the archipelago between Mainland Southeast Asia and Australia, and is also called Insulindia or the Indo-Australian Archipelago. The name was taken from the 19th-century European concept of a Malay race, later based ...
. Like other stars, the three stars also serve as navigational guides for Malay sailors The three stars of the belt are known in
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...
and
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
as '' Las Tres Marías'' in Spanish, and as "As Três Marias" in Portuguese. They also mark the northern night sky when the Sun is at its lowest point, and were a clear marker for ancient timekeeping. In
Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
they are called the '' Los Tres Reyes Magos.'' In Finnish mythology, the Belt of Orion is called ''Väinämöisen vyö'' (
Väinämöinen () is a deity, demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic ''Kalevala'' by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical sing ...
's Belt). The stars which appear to "hang" off the belt form an asterism called ''Kalevanmiekka'' ( Kaleva's
sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...
). In pre-Christian
Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
, the belt was known as
Frigg Frigg (; Old Norse: ) is a goddess, one of the Æsir, in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about her, she is associated with marriage, prophecy, clairvoyance and motherhood, and dwells in the wetl ...
's Distaff (''Friggerock'') or
Freyja In Norse mythology, Freyja (Old Norse "(the) Lady") is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future). Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a char ...
's distaff. Similarly Jacob's Staff and Peter's Staff were European
biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...
derived terms, as were the Three Magi, or the Three Kings.
Väinämöinen () is a deity, demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic ''Kalevala'' by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical sing ...
's Scythe ( Kalevala) and Kalevan Sword are terms from Finnish mythology. The
Seri people The Seri or ''Comcaac'' people are an Indigenous group of the Mexican state of Sonora. The majority reside on the Seri communal property (), in the towns of Punta Chueca () and El Desemboque () on the mainland coast of the Gulf of California ...
of northwestern Mexico call the three belt stars ''Hapj'' (a name denoting a hunter) which consists of three stars: ''Hap'' (mule deer), ''Haamoja'' (pronghorn), and ''Mojet'' (bighorn sheep). ''Hap'' is in the middle and has been shot by the hunter; its blood has dripped onto
Tiburón Island Tiburón Island is the largest island in the Gulf of California and the largest island in Mexico, with an area of . It is uninhabited and it was made a nature reserve in 1963 by President Adolfo López Mateos. Etymology is Spanish language, Spa ...
. The
Māori people Māori () are the Indigenous peoples of Oceania, indigenous Polynesians, Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand. Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand in several waves of Māori migration canoes, c ...
of New Zealand refer to the belt as ''Tautoru'' (literally "string of three"), and it is often seen as the stern of the constellation ''Te Waka o Rangi'' (the canoe of Rangi), which extends to its prow at '' Matariki'' (The
Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...
). The rising of ''Matariki'' in the dawn sky marks the Māori New Year in late May or early June. The discredited archaeological Orion correlation theory postulated a connection between the positions of the Giza pyramids and those of the belt, with the linkage shown to be spurious when placed within the proper historical context.


Gallery

Image:Orion constellation map.png, Map of Orion Image:Spectacular visible light wide-field view of region of Orion's Belt and the Flame Nebula.jpg, The region of Alnitak and Alnilam (upper right) and the Flame Nebula


See also

* Thornborough Henges, ancient monument in North Yorkshire * Orion correlation theory, fringe theory relating the Giza pyramids to the stars of Orion's Belt * Orion OB1


References

{{Authority control Orion (constellation) Asterisms (astronomy) Open clusters Stellar associations