APOD 3.1

Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka (January 21, 2011)

This picture shows the stars that makes up Orion's belt. In the lower left is Alnitak, in the middle is Alnilam, and in the upper right is Mintaka. They are all second magnitude and blue supergiant stars that are hotter and more massive than the Sun, but much younger than our sun. Together they are known as Orion's belt. Alnitak means the girdle. Alnilam means "a belt of pearls". And Mintaka comes from the Arabic word for belt. They are about 1,500 light-years away and came from Orion's interstellar clouds. In the lower left of the image the Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula can be seen. It seems that eventually the fate of Alnitak and Alnilam is to become a red supergiant like Betelgeuse and explode as supernovae. Mintaka will also be famed in death due to the other star's explosions.
I picked this apod because we have just discussed these three stars yesterday in starlab. We did not go into much details, besides their names, and this was a good way to learn more about these stars that I have often seen. It was interesting to know just how massive and bright they were. Alnitak alone is 10,000 times more luminous than the sun and a planet like Earth would have to be 300 times farther from Alnitak than Earth is from the Sun for life like ours to survive.