Orion’s Belt
Orion’s Belt is an asterism of three stars that appear about midway in the constellation Orion the Hunter. The asterism is so called because it appears to form a belt in the hunter’s outfit. It is one of the most famous asterisms used by amateur astronomers. Asterisms are patterns of stars of similar brightness. The stars may be part of a larger constellation or may be formed from stars in different constellations.
Spotting the belt is actually one of the easiest ways to find the constellation Orion itself, which is among the brightest and most prominent in the winter sky. The three stars that traditionally make up the belt are, from west to east: Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak. The names of the outer two both mean “belt” in Arabic, while Alnilam comes from an Arabic word that mean “string of pearls,” which is the name of the whole asterism in Arabic, according to astronomer Jim Kaler.
Cultural References
“The only real legend that is sometimes referred to in Western Culture with Orion’s Belt is the Three Kings,” said Tom Kerss, an astronomer with the Royal Observatory Greenwich, in a Space.com interview. This is a direct reference to the Biblical tale of the three kings who offered gifts to the Baby Christ shortly after his birth.
Alnitak
Alnitak (ζ Orionis) is a triple star system at the eastern end of Orion’s belt and is 1,260 light-years from the Earth. Alnitak B is a 4th-magnitude B-type star which orbits Alnitak A every 1,500 years. The primary (Alnitak A) is itself a close binary, comprising Alnitak Aa (a blue supergiant of spectral type O9.7 Ibe and an apparent magnitude of 2.0) and Alnitak Ab (a blue dwarf of spectral type O9V and an apparent magnitude of about 4). Alnitak Aa is estimated as being up to 28 times as massive as the Sun, and to have a diameter 20 times greater. It is the brightest star of class O in the night sky.
Alnilam
Alnilam (ε Orionis) is a supergiant, approximately 2,000 light-years away from Earth and magnitude 1.70. It is the 29th-brightest star in the sky and the fourth-brightest in Orion. It is 375,000 times more luminous than the Sun. Its spectrum serves as one of the stable anchor points by which other stars are classified.
Mintaka
Mintaka (δ Orionis) is 1,200 light-years away and shines with magnitude 2.21. Mintaka is 90,000 times more luminous than the Sun. Mintaka is a double star. The two stars orbit around each other every 5.73 days.
Alignments with Pyramids
The Orion correlation theory (or Giza–Orion correlation theory) is a fringe theory in alternative Egyptology.
It posits that there is a correlation between the location of the three largest pyramids of the Giza pyramid complex and Orion’s Belt of the constellation Orion, and that this correlation was intended as such by the original builders of the Giza pyramid complex. The stars of Orion were associated with Osiris, the god of rebirth and afterlife by the ancient Egyptians. Depending on the version of the theory, additional pyramids can be included to complete the picture of the Orion constellation, and the Nile river can be included to match with the Milky Way. The theory was first published in 1989 in Discussions in Egyptology, volume 13. It was the subject of a bestseller, The Orion Mystery, in 1994, as well as a BBC documentary, The Great Pyramid: Gateway to the Stars (February 1994), and appears in some New Age books.
Also there is a proposition that the five mountains (on the image) on the Mars carries the same alignment with the other pyramids on Earth and Orion’s Belt.
