Find it in the sky
The three stars of its Belt in a row: Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka. The Belt points southeast to Sirius and northwest to Aldebaran. The constellation of winter evenings.
Celestial equator
Orion
His three-star belt is winter’s easiest find.
Best in January, around 9 p.m.No. 26 of the 88 constellations by areaBrightest star Rigel (magnitude 0.13)7 stars in this guide
The drawings on these maps are the game’s, and don’t show exact positions in the sky.
Legend
When the giant hunter Orion boasts he will kill every animal on Earth, a scorpion is sent to sting him. So Orion and Scorpius never share the sky: as one rises, the other sets.
Its stars
Magnitude says how bright a star looks from here: the smaller the number, the brighter the star.
Saiph
Kappa Orionis
- Type
- Blue supergiant
- Distance
- about 650 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 2.09
- Name
- “Sword” (Arabic)
It looks dim to us, yet it is a very hot supergiant: most of its light is ultraviolet our eyes can’t see.
Rigel
Beta Orionis
- Type
- Blue supergiant
- Distance
- about 860 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 0.13
- Name
- “Foot” (Arabic)
The seventh brightest star in the sky, over 100,000 times as bright as the Sun.
Alnitak
Zeta Orionis
- Type
- Blue supergiant
- Distance
- about 1,260 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 1.77
- Name
- “The girdle” (Arabic)
The east end of Orion’s Belt, right beside the Horsehead and Flame nebulae.
Alnilam
Epsilon Orionis
- Type
- Blue supergiant
- Distance
- about 2,000 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 1.69
- Name
- “String of pearls” (Arabic)
The Belt’s middle star, one of the most luminous stars the naked eye can see.
Mintaka
Delta Orionis
- Type
- Blue bright giant
- Distance
- about 1,200 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 2.23
- Name
- “Belt” (Arabic)
It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it rises due east and sets due west.
Bellatrix
Gamma Orionis
- Type
- Blue giant
- Distance
- about 250 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 1.64
- Name
- “Female warrior” (Latin)
Orion’s shoulder: a blue giant far hotter than the Sun.
Betelgeuse
Alpha Orionis
- Type
- Red supergiant
- Distance
- about 550 light years
- Brightness
- magnitude 0.50
- Name
- “Hand” (Arabic; a misreading gave today’s name)
In the Sun’s place it would reach the asteroid belt. It dimmed sharply in 2019 and will one day explode.
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Sources: constellation areas follow the International Astronomical Union (IAU) boundaries; star values come from Wikipedia’s articles, based on Hipparcos and Gaia; the Sun’s dates come from EarthSky. Distances are rounded.