What does the constellation Orion look like? Map of the constellation Orion. Description, Myths

The starry sky is especially beautiful in summer. On clear, hot nights, the number of luminaries above the head is striking. However, there are celestial drawings that are best observed in the cold season. Among them is the constellation Orion. Its scheme includes 209 stars, available for observation with the naked eye. Orion is famous precisely because of the large number of bright cosmic objects in its composition, easily distinguishable from the Earth. The ideal time for their observation is from November to January.

Recognizable anywhere in the world

As the constellation Orion looks, it is known practically to all inhabitants of our planet, as it is visible in both hemispheres. This is facilitated by the location of the stars practically on the line of the celestial equator.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the drawing of the constellation Orion is especially well marked in the winter in the late evenings in the southern part of the sky. At this time, the three stars forming the Orion belt and located on an almost perfectly straight line are close to the horizon line at a slight angle to it. The recognizable silhouette forms eight well-marked luminaries. Celestial drawing since Antiquity is associated with the image of the hunter of Orion with a sword on his belt, a club in one hand and a shield in the other.

Legend

The constellation Orion for children is described for the first time not in the lessons of astronomy, but in the process of acquaintance with the legends of Ancient Greece. According to legend, the hero, subsequently placed on the sky, was known as a skilled hunter, whose heart was struck by the beauty of the Pleiades - the nymph of the goddess Artemis. Attempts by Orion to speak to them remained unsuccessful: embarrassed nymphs rushed to run away and called for help from their patroness. Artemis turned the seven Pleiades into a dove. They flew high into the sky, where they soon became a constellation.

Orion quickly ceased to mourn for the nymphs and fell in love with Meropa, the daughter of the king of the island Chios Oinoopia. The father demanded of the hero to perform a feat worthy of the hand of his daughter. However, Orion decided to do it his own way: he intended to steal Meropa. The king learned about the plans of the hunter and blinded him in revenge.

Death of the hero

Orion long wandered alone on the ground in search of someone who could restore his sight. In the end, he was pitied by one of the encountered cyclops and led to Helios. The sun god could make the hero again see. Orion, without thinking twice, returned to his favorite pastime. During the pursuit of his prey, Artemis noticed, who loved to hunt. Orion soon became her lover, which greatly upset the brother of the goddess, Apollo. He decided to ruin the hunter by cunning. Apollo, who knew the pride of Artemis, in conversation, doubted the accuracy of her shooting from the bow and for the sake of verification suggested that she try to hit a distant dark spot that flashed in the waters of the sea. The goddess easily coped with the task, not suspecting that the point was the head of Orion, who decided to swim.

Soon, Artemis learned that she had become the murderer of her lover. Lamenting Orion, she swore an oath to always remember him and placed him among the stars. So Orion - a constellation - began to shine in the sky. Myths tell about another version of the hero's fate. According to one version, hoping to become the husband of the beautiful Merope, he bravely fought with the wild beasts that threatened the inhabitants of the island of Chios. Having defeated all, he, however, did not receive the girl, but was captured and blinded by her father. After the meeting with Helios, Orion regained his sight, but after a while he was killed by an angry Artemis, the patroness of beasts.

Highly visible

So, as the constellation Orion looks like today, it was seen many thousands of years ago. This is one of the celestial drawings included in the catalog "Almagest" by Claudius Ptolemy, compiled around 140 AD. Attention, which was given to the ancient Orion, is not accidental: the constellation is full of bright elements, perfectly visible from the Earth, which attracts curious views. Modern scientists also do not bypass the heavenly figure. Many of the objects located here have been fairly well studied.

The two brightest stars in the constellation Orion are Rigel and Betelgeuse. Being guided by these two points, it is easy to find the silhouette of the hunter completely in the sky.

Alpha Orion

Betelgeuse in Arabic means "armpit". The name of the star uniquely describes its location. A bright dot is placed on the right armpit of the hunter. By its brightness, Betelgeuse is fifteen thousand times greater than the Sun. The size of the star is larger than the orbit of Mars. It is a red supergiant, separated from us at a distance of 540-650 light years. It is classified as a semi-regular variable star, changing its visual brilliance over time. The interval of such a change for Betelgeuse is from 0.4 to 1.3 magnitude, and the main period lasts 6 years.

Beta Orion

Despite the fact that the alpha is Betelgeuse, this is not the brightest point, which contains the drawing of the constellation Orion. Rigel (in translation from the Arabic "leg") surpasses it in this parameter. The luminosity of the star is more than 130 thousand times the solar distance, the distance from us to it is (according to various estimates) from 700 to 900 light years. Rigel is the closest star to the Earth, possessing such a huge luminosity. The visual magnitude is 0.12.

Rigel is a white and blue supergiant, part of the star system. His companion Rigel B is considerably inferior in brightness: its apparent magnitude is estimated at +6.7. The distance between the two components is about 2200 astronomical units. A close arrangement to a bright supergiant makes it possible to consider Rigel B only in a telescope. The system also has a third component - Rigel S.

Short life

Such stars in the constellation of Orion, like Betelgeuse and Rigel, are doomed to a relatively short existence due to their massive and huge luminosity. The age of both objects is estimated at about 10 million years: they are much younger than the Sun, which is already over 4.5 billion years old. Up to the age of our luminary they can not live. A huge mass, creating a significant pressure, contributes to a very rapid burnout of the internal fuel of the star. As a result, eventually the nucleus collapses, becoming a neutron. With it will collide and when interacting, the outer shells will bounce off with enormous speed. There will be an explosion of a supernova of the second type.

A similar fate awaits both Rigel and Betelgeuse. During the explosions, the figure of the hunter in the sky will undergo serious changes in comparison with what the constellation Orion looks like now. The collapse of Rigel will be noticeable from Earth, day and night. The star in size will become like a quarter of the moon, gradually fading and turning into a barely noticeable point. Betelgeuse, according to estimates of scientists, will live for at least two thousand years and after the explosion will be its size to compete with the moon. In this form, the star will last no longer than a few weeks, and then it will also die away. However, these events are a matter of the distant future, while the bright stars in the constellation Orion still delight us with their light.

Belt

The constellation includes a large number of asterisms (well-marked groups of stars having separate historically formed names). Thanks to one of them, the constellation Orion for children and adults becomes easily recognizable almost at any time of the year. This is the hunter's belt, consisting of three pretty bright stars: Mintaka (delta, from Arabic "belt"), Alnitak (zeta, meaning "pearl belt") and Alnilam (epsilon, "kushak"). Asterism is also called "Three Kings" or "Rake". Three bright dots form an almost ideal straight line and are at the same distance from each other. If the south-eastern edge of the line continues, then he will point to Sirius - the brightest star of the night sky. The northwestern part of the line can be extended to Aldebaran, the red star in Taurus.

Sheaf

The recognizable silhouette of the constellation is created by an asterism called the Sheaf or the Butterfly. It is formed by several bright stars: Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix (gamma), Alnitak, Mintaka and Saif (kappa).

Gamma Orion - the third brightest star of this heavenly figure. It belongs to the class of white and blue giants, has a visible magnitude of 1.64. The luminosity of a cosmic object is more than 4,000 times solar, but its mass and radius are not so impressive. The first is about 9 solar masses, and the second parameter exceeds the corresponding characteristic of our luminary by only 5.7 times. By age Bellatrix is similar to Rigel and Betelgeuse. This young star is already shining for 10 million years. Scientists predict her transformation into a red giant in a few million years.

The blue-white star Saif is located about the same distance from the Earth as Rigel, but it seems much dimmer due to the fact that a significant part of its energy is radiated in an invisible range. The luminosity of Saif is more than 5,5 thousand times the solar radiation, and the diameter is 11 times.

The main weapon

The sword is no less famous asterism, which the Orion constellation can boast of. Its scheme includes two stars - θ and ι (theta and iota), and also the Great Nebula of Orion.

Theta is a multiple star system, consisting of four bright components and the same amount of less noticeable ones. They form a small quadrangle, known as the Orion Trapezium. These are rather young space objects formed from interstellar gas and dust. Material for the luminaries came from an invisible cloud occupying the eastern part of the constellation. This is the Great Orion Nebula.

"Star Crèche"

In the terrible weapons of the hunter is the cradle of future stars. Nebula Orion or M42 - the birthplace of a large number of space objects. It is distant from us for 1500 light years, but if you want it you can see it with the naked eye. For this you need to look at the area under the belt of Orion. The M42 looks like a small spot resembling a comet. On the photographs, made with the help of powerful telescopes, the nebula strikes with its beauty. It is known not only for its impressive size and reddish glow. There are a lot of so-called star crèches, where the future luminaries are formed. This is the closest region to us. From other stellar nurseries The Great Nebula of Orion differs also in that here clouds of gas and dust practically do not interfere with the study of the processes of star formation. Thanks to this, almost all modern knowledge about the formation of light was gained from observations of M42.

Black hole

Map of the constellation Orion has recently been supplemented by another interesting object, located near Trapezium. Studies have shown that during the evolution of the M42 nebula a large number of collisions of stars occurred, which could cause the formation of a black hole that exceeds the mass of the Sun by a factor of 100. This assumption agrees perfectly with the data on the high velocities characteristic of stars that make up the Orion Trapezium. If the existence of a black hole is confirmed, it will become the closest object to the solar system.

The stallion's head

Forms reminiscent of animals differ only in the constellations in the sky. Orion is famous for another nebula called "Horsehead" (or B33). It really looks like a horse's head with its outlines. The possibility to see a clear outline is due to the illumination created by another nebula, which acts as a backdrop for the Horsehead. B33 itself does not emit light, it is attributed to absorbing nebulae. Accordingly, in the absence of a bright background, it would be very poorly visible. And under existing conditions, not every instrument manages to detect it, therefore the Horse Head was made a kind of marker of serviceability and accuracy of the equipment operation.

Reflective light

The description of what the constellation Orion looks like will be incomplete, if we do not mention a whole series of nebulae, often ignored by researchers due to their lesser external expressiveness. These are the so-called reflective nebulae. Of course, they lose against the background of the bright M42, but nevertheless are of some interest. Nebula NGC 1977, NGC 1975 and NGC 1973 are located in the Sword of the Orion somewhat north of the M42. Due to the reflection of bright young stars by cosmic dust, these nebulae have a bluish color in the pictures. In photographs taken by telescopes, three nebulae, separated by dark regions, along the edge of the illuminated reddish radiation of hydrogen atoms, form the silhouette of a running man - another easily recognizable image in the constellation Orion.

Birth-giving light

The nebula "Flame" looks unusually beautiful (its other name is "Torch"). This is another place where new stars are constantly born in the constellation of Orion. In the pictures it looks like a burning bonfire: glowing clouds with dark impregnations are like flames. Nebula "Torch" is located near the sigma of Orion and it is highlighted. The distance from us to this cradle of young stars is about a thousand light-years.

The constellation Orion, whose description was given above, is rightfully considered one of the most beautiful heavenly drawings. The bright stars that make up it, allow the silhouette of the mythical hunter to be noticeable almost constantly. Thanks to them, once having calculated the location, the observer will never again ask the question of how to find the constellation of Orion. For an amateur astronomer in this heavenly figure, it is also valuable that many of its elements are available for direct study with the naked eye. Other components, such as part of the Great Orion Nebula, can be observed with a small telescope or even binoculars.