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Orion - Alnitak, Mintaka and Alnilam

by: VegaStar Carpentier

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Purple-ish Neptune. October 30, 1998. NASA.

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Orion’s Belt - Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka

by: Christopher Stobiecki

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Orion (constellation)

Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky. It was named after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. Its brightest stars are Rigel (Beta Orionis) and Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis), a blue-white and a red supergiant, respectively.

Orion’s seven brightest stars form a distinctive hourglass-shaped asterism, or pattern, in the night sky. Four stars—Rigel, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix and Saiph—form a large roughly rectangular shape, in the centre of which lie the three stars of Orion’s Belt—Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

Orion’s Belt or The Belt of Orion is an asterism within the constellation. It consists of the three bright stars Zeta (Alnitak), Epsilon (Alnilam), and Delta (Mintaka). Alnitak is around 800 light years away from earth and is 100,000 times more luminous than the Sun; much of its radiation is in the ultraviolet range, which the human eye cannot see. Alnilam is approximately 1340 light years away from Earth, shines with magnitude 1.70, and with ultraviolet light is 375,000 times more luminous than the Sun. Mintaka is 915 light years away and shines with magnitude 2.21. It is 90,000 times more luminous than the Sun and is a double star: the two orbit each other every 5.73 days.

Around 20 October each year the Orionid meteor shower (Orionids) reaches its peak. Coming from the border with the constellation Gemini as many as 20 meteors per hour can be seen. The shower’s parent body is Halley’s Comet.

M78 (NGC 2068) is a nebula in Orion. With an overall magnitude of 8.0, it is significantly dimmer than the Great Orion Nebula that lies to its south; however, it is at approximately the same distance, at 1600 light-years from Earth. It can easily be mistaken for a comet in the eyepiece of a telescope. 

Another fairly bright nebula in Orion is NGC 1999, also close to the Great Orion Nebula. It has an integrated magnitude of 10.5 and is 1500 light-years from Earth. The variable star V380 Orionis is embedded in NGC 1999.

Another famous nebula is IC 434, the Horsehead Nebula, near ζ Orionis. It contains a dark dust cloud whose shape gives the nebula its name.

NGC 2174 is an emission nebula located 6400 light-years from Earth.

Besides these nebulae, surveying Orion with a small telescope will reveal a wealth of interesting deep-sky objects, including M43, M78, as well as multiple stars including Iota Orionis and Sigma Orionis. A larger telescope may reveal objects such as Barnard’s Loop and the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024), as well as fainter and tighter multiple stars and nebulae.

All of these nebulae are part of the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, which is located approximately 1,500 light-years away and is hundreds of light-years across. It is one of the most intense regions of stellar formation visible within our galaxy.

source

image credit: Tunç Tezel,  H. Raab,  Andrew Walker,  Geert Vanhauwaert,  Jason Hullinger, ESO, NASA/ESA Hubble

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Wings of Cosmic Butterfly 

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Full Wolf Moon 2022 l Rami Ammoun

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itseriksen

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“If you hate my story. I’m sorry, it was not written for you.”

— ThePersonalWords

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Unmute !

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Just here to say this might be my last time here on tumblr. I'm not deleting it. But I'm trying to ignore social media for a while. People have become so angry and hateful that they've forgotten what they we're originally fighting for. Started out fighting for empathy but then became what they were fighting against. It's sad. I hope everyone can eventually wake up.

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Taking a break from tumblr. From all of my more active accounts.✌🏻peace

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Update: I finally moved to the coast, and I'm living out my mermaid dream. 🧜🏻‍♀️ I now basically live in the ocean. Good luck getting me out 😄

This might sound extremely cheesy and cringey, but I'm curious.. does anyone else feel like their soul just craves the water? Not like in a "I'm dehydrated and need a glass of water" kind of way 😄 but like, I just want to be drenched in it all the time kind of way. Sometimes, I feel like I'm supposed to live in a forest near a river or lake and just be this magical forest fairy haha. But other times I just want to live at a cold beach where I can smell the ocean all the time and just be at peace near the water. Not to sound like those "I want to be a mermaid" type of girls, but I swear if I could live and breathe in water I so fucking would.

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Perfect weekend morning 💫