Orion the constellation: a wealth of beauty and a source of myth

Mary Andrus

Salt Lake Community College

PHYS 1040--Stephen Preston

April 10, 2019

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 Orion is one of the most recognizable constellations in the night sky. With the three

bright stars that make up the hunter’s belt, this popular configuration of stars is hard to miss.

Many people outside of the astronomy world, however, do not realize that the technical

definition for a constellation is not only a pattern of stars, but the area of the celestial sphere that

is named after that pattern. The sky is divided up into eighty-eight of these sections (Josephine

Campbell, 2016), with Orion occupying only 1.44% of the sky’s total area (Universe Guide).

Packed into this almost two percent of sky is a whole wealth of astronomical beauty, including

many bright stars and at least one of every major class of deep sky object, aside from a globular

cluster (Stephen James O’Meara, 2015). Due to its easy recognizability there is also a multitude

of mythology surrounding the proud, commanding figure of Orion.

Orion Constellation Map, by IAU and Sky&Telescope magazine, retrieved from

​ ccessed 10 April 2019.

https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/orion-constellation/​. A

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 Orion is located almost directly on the celestial equator at a right ascension (RA) of 5.59

hours and a declination (DEC) of +4.58 degrees (Campbell, 2016). It covers 594.12 square

degrees (Universe Guide) and is the 26th constellation in terms of size (O’Meara, 2015). It can

be seen between +85 degrees North and -75 degrees South, being easily visible from either

hemisphere of the globe between October and March. It is visible in the Northern Hemisphere in

the winter and in the Southern Hemisphere during the summer (Campbell, 2016). The

constellations that border Orion are Eridanus, Gemini, Lepus, Monoceros, and Taurus (O’Meara,

2015). Most of Orion’s major stars are young blue giants. The most easily spotted feature of

Orion, his belt, is made up of three stars: Epsilon Orionis (Alnilam), Delta Orionis (Mintaka),

and Zeta Orionis (Alnitak), which are part of a special arm in the Milky Way Galaxy. Orion’s

head is defined by the star Lambda Orionis (Meissa), and his shoulders are outlined by Alpha

Orionis (Betelgeuse) and Gamma Orionis (Bellatrix). Orion’s right knee or foot is Kappa Orionis

(Saiph) and his left knee is the brightest star of the constellation, Beta Orionis (Rigel). The tip of

Orion’s sword is Iota Orionis (Na’ir al Saif), and the Orion Nebula, arguably the most interesting

part of the constellation, is found in the middle of the sword (Campbell, 2016).

First written of by the Greco-Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy (Universe Guide), Orion’s

easily identifiable nature provides the perfect basis for myths and stories from many cultures,

including the Greeks, Egyptians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Arabs, Chinese, Australian

Aborigines, Hungarians, Hittites, Aztecs and Mayans (Josephine Campbell, 2016; Stephen James

O’Meara, 2015; V. Thomas, 2014). In all sources Orion is described as a mighty hunter, a strong

and tall man. Ptolemy described him as similar to Hercules, with a club and a lion’s pelt

(Constellation Guide, 2019). In Homer’s Odyssey, Orion is described as most handsome,

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exceptionally tall, and armed with an unbreakable bronze club (Constellation Guide, 2019).

Greek mythology surrounding Orion is greatly varied (Thomas, 2004). Many Grecian stories say

that Orion’s parents were Poseidon the sea god and Euryale the Cretan princess (Campbell,

2016). These legends frequently surround Orion’s death, with most saying that he was killed by a

scorpion. One such legend says that Orion boasted that he could kill any beast on earth, angering

Gaia, the mother of the earth. She sent a scorpion after the hunter, which killed him. Zeus (king

of the gods) then placed Orion in the sky (Campbell, 2016). Over the course of a Grecian night

the pursuit of the scorpion is reenacted with the constellation Scorpius chasing the constellation

Orion across the night sky. Orion sets in the west just as Scorpius rises in the East (Campbell,

2016; Thomas, 2004).

Some Greek accounts say that the hunter Orion and the huntress Artemis fell in love, but

Artemis’ brother Apollo disapproved of the match and tricked Artemis into shooting Orion: One

day Apollo saw Orion swimming in the distance and challenged Artemis to hit the far-off target

with an arrow. With perfect aim, Artemis struck Orion and his body washed up on shore

(Thomas, 2004). Devastated by what she had done, Artemis then placed Orion among the stars

(Campbell, 2016). Some say that Orion dived into a body of water to escape the aforementioned

scorpion, and that is when Artemis killed him (Thomas, 2004). A similar Greek story says that

Orion fell in love with Merope, the daughter of King Oenopion, who didn’t return his affections.

One night Orion got drunk and tried to force himself on her. The king was furious, put out

Orion’s eyes and banished him. In his wanderings, Orion met Hephaestus, the god of fire and

metalworking (​Greek Gods & Goddesses​, 2014), who took pity on him. He gave Orion one of

his assistants, who guided him to an oracle. The oracle told Orion that if he went eastward

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toward the sunrise his eyesight would return. Orion did as the oracle said and his sight was

restored.

Other Grecian myths talk of Orion and his hunting dogs (Canis Major and Canis Minor)

pursuing a hare (Lepus) across the sky. One myth says Orion pursued the Pleiades, daughters of

Atlas the Titan and Pleione the nymph (Constellation Guide, 2019). Zeus rescued the maidens by

placing them in the sky as the Pleiades star cluster which is part of the constellation Taurus

(Campbell, 2016).

Chinese astronomers viewed Orion in a similar way to the Greeks, as a mighty hunter,

but they placed him in a much larger hunting scene. Their name for his constellation was “shen,”

meaning “three stars.”

Orion’s Belt stars and Flame Nebula, photo: Davide De Martin, Digitized Sky Survey, ESA, ESO, NASA

​ ccessed
FITS Liberator, retrieved from ​https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/orion-constellation/​. A

10 April 2019.

The Aztecs called the stars of Orion’s belt and sword the “fire drill.” They were

instrumental in the Aztec New Fire ceremony, which was intended to forestall the end of the

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world. In Australia the stars of Orion’s belt and sword are known as the “pot” or “saucepan”

(Constellation Guide, 2019) and Australian aborigines viewed the three stars of Orion’s belt as

young men dancing to attract the attention of the maidens of Pleiades. Early Mayans saw these

stars as “the crack in the shell of the cosmic turtle through which the world ascended” (O’Meara,

2015).To Arab astronomers, Orion was part of a larger female figure called “al-Jauza,” meaning

“the central one.” This also included the constellation Gemini and one of Orion’s brightest stars,

Betelgeuse, was one of her hands (Campbell, 2016). Ancient Egyptians viewed Orion as either

Horus, the God of Light, or Osiris, his father (Thomas, 2004), or sometimes as the last Pharaoh

of the Fifth Dynasty, Unas, who is said to travel through the sky to become the star Sabu, or

Orion. Hungarians viewed Orion as Nimrod the hunter and father of Hunor and Magor

(Constellation Guide, 2019). Hittite mythology associates Orion with the hunter Aqhat, with

whom Anat, the war goddess, fell in love. When Aqhat refused to let Anat borrow his bow, she

sent someone to steal it. The thief she sent messed up and killed Aqhat, sending his bow

plummeting into the sea. According to this legend, that is why the constellation drops below the

horizon for two months in the spring (Constellation Guide, 2019).

Some say that myths surrounding Orion originated with the Sumerians (Constellation

Guide, 2019), who, with the Babylonians, saw Orion as the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh. When a

scorned admirer ordered Taurus the Bull to destroy Uruk, Gilgamesh was thrown into a battle

with the beast that would forever be re-enacted in the night sky (Thomas, 2004). In the Late

Bronze Age Babylonians also saw Orion as “The Heavenly Shepherd” and associated it with

Anu, the god of the heavenly realms (Constellation Guide, 2019).

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Geolander, Elkhart, IL. 11/3/17, 11:30pm CST “The Orion Nebula (M42) and Running Man Nebula (M43),” Sky &

Telescope, retrieved from

https://www.skyandtelescope.com/online-gallery/the-orion-nebula-m42-and-running-man-nebula-m43/​. Accessed

10 April 2019

Orion houses many interesting deep-sky objects, including star clusters and nebulae. The

most striking of these is the Orion Nebula, an emission/reflection nebula 1344 light years from

earth (Constellation Guide, 2019). It is located at an RA of 5 hours 35 minutes and a DEC of 5

degrees 25 minutes, and has a visual magnitude of 3.0 (Sue French, 2018). Labeled as M42/M43,

the Orion Nebula looks like two different nebulae, but is actually one nebula complex with a

superimposed stream of dark nebulosity protruding into it. This bay of dark nebulosity is named

Sinus Magnus and William Henry Smith, a 19th-century English astronomer nicknamed it the

“Fish’s Mouth” (O’Meara, 2015). A planetary nebula called Jonckheere 320 that is located at an

RA of 5 hours 5.6 minutes and a DEC of +10 degrees 42 minutes was first catalogued in 1911 by

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Robert Jonckheere as a pair of 9.8 magnitude stars, but he later realized that it was “an extremely

small bright elongated nebula.” Another interesting feature of Orion is the open star cluster

Collinder 70, which is located at an RA of 5 hours 35.6 minutes and a DEC of -1 degrees 5

minutes. Its visual magnitude is 0.6 (French, 2018). Another open star cluster is NGC 1981,

which is located at an RA of 5 hours 48 minutes 29 seconds and a DEC of -4 degrees 25 minutes

30 seconds. Comprised of thirteen stars with magnitudes ranging from six to nine (French,

2018), it has a visual magnitude of 4.6 and lies 1250 light years from earth (Orion--Constellation

Guide).

Of the twenty brightest stars in Orion, the one most like our Sun is Pi-3 Orionis, which is

a class F6V star with 1.2 solar masses, a 1.3 solar radius, and three times the luminosity of the

Sun. Pi-3 Orionis and Pi-2 Orionis are the closest of Orion’s brightest stars to earth, both lying

only 26.32 light years away, a huge contrast to Pi-5 Orionis, which lies 1,342 light years away,

making it the farthest star from earth out of Orion’s twenty brightest stars. Out of Orion’s main

sequence stars, the one that will die first is Sigma Orionis A, with a spectral class of O9 V, and

the one that will live the longest is is Chi-1 Orionis, with a spectral class of G0 V. Here is a table

of Orion’s twenty brightest stars, with their location, distance from earth, visual magnitude,

spectral class, and name or designation, with information retrieved from Constellation Guide,

2019 and Orion--Constellation Guide, as well as O’Meara, 2015 and Campbell, 2016:

Right Declination Distance Visual Spectral class Name or

Ascension from Earth Magnitude designation

05h 14m 32s -08d 12m 06s 772.5 ly 0.13 B8lab Rigel- ​β
Orionis (Beta
Orionis, 19
Orionis)

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05h 55m 10s +07d 24m 643 ly 0.42 M2lab Betelgeuse-ɑ
25s Orionis
(Alpha
Orionis, 58
Orionis)

05h 25m 08s +06d 20m 240 ly 1.64 B2 III Bellatrix-ᴦ

59s Orionis
(Gamma
Orionis, aka:
Amazon Star)

05h 36m 13s -01d 12m 07s 1300 ly 1.69 B0 Alnilam-ε

Orionis
(Epsilon
Orionis, 46
Orionis)

05h 40m 46s -01d 56m 33s 700 ly 1.77 O9 Alnitak-ζ

Orionis (Zeta
Orionis, 50
Orionis)

05h 47m 45s -09d 40m 11s 720 ly 2.09 B0.5 Saiph-κ
Orionis
(Kappa
Orionis, 53
Orionis)

05h 32m 01s -00d 17m 57s 900 ly 2.23 B giant, O Mintaka-δ
star Orionis
(Delta
Orionis, 34
Orionis)

05h 35m 26s -05d 54m 36s 1300 ly 2.77 O9 III Blue Hatsya-ι
Giant & B1 Orionis (Iota
III Star Orionis)

04h 49m +06d 57m 26.32 ly 3.16 F6V Pi-3 Orionis

50.41s 40.59s (1 Orionis)
“Tabit”

05h 24m 29s -02d 23m 50s 900 ly 3.35 B0.5V η Orionis
(Eta Orionis)

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 05h 35m 09s +09d 56m 1100 ly 3.47 O8 III Meissa-λ
03s Orionis
(Lambda
Orionis)

05h 17m -06d 50m 555 ly 3.59 B5 III τ Orionis

36.40s 39.8s (Tau Orionis)

04h 51m +05d 36m 1250 ly 3.69 B2 Pi-4 Orionis

12.36s 18.37s (3 Orionis)

04h 54m +02d 26m 1342 ly 3.70 B2 III Pi-5 Orionis

15.096s 26.42s (8 Orionis)

05h 36m +09d 17m 115 ly 4.09 K0 Phi-2 Orionis

54.33s 29.1s (40 Orionis)

05h 38m 45s -02d 36m 00s 1150 ly 4.2 O9V σ Orionis
(Sigma
Orionis) A

05h 30m 47s +05d 56m 300 ly 4.2 B5V, B7V 32 Orionis
54s

04h 50m +08d 54m 26.32 ly 4.35 F6V Pi-2 Orionis

36.72s 00.65s

05h 34m +09d 29m 1000 ly 4.39 B0 Phi-1 Orionis

49.24s 22.5s

05h 54m +20d 16m 28 ly 4.39 G0V Chi-1 Orionis

23.08 35.1s

One of the most recognizable figures in astronomy and mythology, the constellation

Orion holds some of the brightest stars found in our sky. Not only is it home to many interesting

deep-sky objects, such as the Orion Nebula which houses a dark nebulosity, but it is also the

center of myth and legend from many different cultures, from the Greeks to the Arabs, to the

Aztecs and Mayans. Located almost exactly on the celestial equator, Orion is easily spotted by

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the naked eye but beneath its surface lies a wealth of wonder just waiting to be explored (French,

2018).

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Campbell, J. (2019). Orion (constellation). ​Salem Press Encyclopedia of Science.​ Retrieved from

http://search.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=11710

7391&site=eds-live

French, S. (2018). Winter’s Mighty Hunter. ​Sky & Telescope, 135(2), 54.​ Retrieved from

https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=f6h&AN=126453460&site=eds-live

(2014). Hephaestus, Greek God of Fire and Metalworking. ​Greek Gods and Goddesses.

Retrieved from ​https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/gods/hephaestus/

O’Meara, S. J. (2015). Discover ORION’S DEEP-SKY GEMS. ​Astronomy,​ ​43(​ 2), 50. Retrieved

from

http://search.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=10033

4520&site=eds-live.

​ rion Constellation. ​Constellation Guide, Constellations: A Guide to the Night Sky.

(2019).​ O

Retrieved from https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/orion-constellation/

​ etrieved from ​https://freestarcharts.com/orion

Orion--Constellation Guide. ​Free Star Charts. R

Orion, The Hunter: Constellation Facts and Mythology. ​Universe Guide.​ Retrieved from

https://www.universeguide.com/constellation/orion

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Riddle, B. bob-riddle@currentsky. co. (2017). Flipped constellations. ​Science Scope, 40(5),

74–77​. Retrieved from

https://libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=eft&AN=120423459&site=eds-live

Thomas, V. (2004). The Hunter. ​Astronomy​, ​32​(2), 75. Retrieved from

http://search.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=11850

379&site=eds-live

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Name/Type RA dec Distance Visual Size
of Object from Earth Magnitude

Orion 5h 35m -5d 25m 1600 ly 3.0 60m

Nebula--M42
/M43
(Emission/Re
flection
Nebula)

Collinder 70 5h 35.6m -1d 05m 0.6 4.2d x 2.0d

(open cluster)

Jonckhere 5h 05.6m +10d 42m 11.9 26s x 14s

320
(planetary
nebula)

NGC 2175 6h 13.8m +20d 29 29m x 27m

NGC 2163 11.5 3m x 2m

(bipolar
reflection
nebula)

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