The Orion’s belt is formed by three stars in the constellation of the same name. The trio is arranged in a straight line, so they are very easy to find. In Ukrainian folk tradition, they are also known as Harvesters. It’s also believed that the pyramids of Giza mirror the trio. But what is the real nature of these stars?
Sky Harvesters
Orion is one of the most striking constellations in our skies. Its main stars form an outline reminiscent of a sheaf of wheat, or two trapezoids joined at their shorter sides. At the center of it all are the three stars, seemingly in perfect alignment.
They are called Orion’s belt, not a constellation but a so-called asterism, which is a group of stars easily perceived as a distinct image and that have a historical name. Though in this case, the asterism has many names, since every culture interpreted the image differently.
In Ukrainian culture, the stars are known as Harvesters, perhaps due to their emergence during summer dawns at harvest time. Though they are also referred to as Three Kings, Three Magi, and Three Sisters.
Each of these stars has its own name. The one closest to the horizon and Orion’s feet is Alnitak. To the right is Alnilam, and even farther than that is Mintaka. All of them carry rich history worth exploring.
Alnitak
Similar to most asterisms, the Orion’s belt stars are much farther away from each other than they appear to us. Since the distance between them is so vast, it’s worth exploring each of them individually. Let’s begin with Alnitak, also known as ζ Orionis or Zeta Ori.
This star is 1,260 light years away from us, and its Arabic name literally means “the girdle.” In reality, it’s a triple star system. The main star Alnitak Aa is a blue giant twenty times larger than the Sun and 33 times more massive. Its luminosity equals 21,000 Suns.
The surface temperature of Alnitak Aa reaches 29,500 Kelvin, making it the brightest class O star in our sky. Its companion Alnitak Ab is almost as hot, with surface temperatures measuring 29,000 Kelvin.
However, the star itself is not that large. Its radius is 7.3 larger than the Sun’s, and its mass is 14 times bigger. These two giant white-blue stars orbit one another every 7.4 years.
Another hot blue star orbits the pair every 1,508 years. The entire system is buried deep within nebula IC 434. The system’s main star is expected to turn supernova in the next million years.
Alnilam
Alnilam is the second star in Orion’s belt. The estimated distance ranges between 1,180 and 2,000 light years. Estimations of its luminosity therefore also vary. What we know for sure is that this hot super giant exceeds our sun’s brightness by tens of thousands of times.
Stars of this type evolve exceptionally fast, so Alnilam, also known as ε Orionis, is only a few million years old. Scientists expect Alnilam to turn into a Wolf-Rayet star in the next few million years.
These stars are so hot and emit such high levels of radiation that their solar winds literally strip their surface from any remnants of hydrogen layers, which then form remarkable nebulae around them. Alnilam is predicted to turn supernova and then morph into a black hole.
Mintaka
Mintaka, or δ Orionis, is the third, and also the topmost, star in Orion’s belt. Located on the far right, the star’s name can be translated as “belt”. The distance is also highly debated, putting it within the range of 700 and 1,200 light years.
Mintaka is a multiple star system. Its main object is a hot class O star whose mass reaches 17.8 masses of the sun, and 13.1 larger radius. It’s orbited by a blue star with 8.5 mass of the Sun and a diameter 4.2 larger than the Sun’s radius. Both stars are very hot, with temperatures rising to 25,000 Kelvin.
The pair is orbited by another hot class O star with the 8.8 mass of the Sun, and a 12 larger radius. This star’s orbital period lasts 350 years, with the orbit itself taking an elongated shape. The distance between the main pair and their third companion fluctuates between 38 and 128 astronomical units. The two inner components conceal one another at periodic points during their mutual orbit, so we perceive the visible value of the entire system differently.
But that’s not all. Close to the main star of δ Orionis, we can spot another star, in reality a binary system. At present, astronomers are not able to determine if this system is gravitationally related to the other three components.
Orion’s Belt and the Pyramids
All these incredibly hot and bright stars would be of little interest to anyone if they didn’t adorn our skies with such magnificent brilliance. According to one theory, the Nile delta peoples were among the first to discover the beauty of astronomy, imbuing the three stars with such great significance that they built the most famous trio of Pyramids in Giza to match the asterism.
In 1989, Robert Bauval was the first to propose this theory which, in time, gained quite a number of followers.
That said, the northward orientation of the three giant structures is at a completely different angle than that of Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. The adherents of the theory provide a simple explanation for this: over thousands of years, the stars have shifted in our sky, but they used to completely match the pyramids in the distant past.
But when was that exactly? Bauval and his colleagues attempted to answer that question by examining the Sphinx. The enormous statue allegedly pointed in the direction of the Leo constellation, which marked the vernal equinox from 10,970 to 8,810 BCE. From this, the authors of this revolutionary theory extrapolated that the Sphinx had been built during that period, rendering all traditional timeline estimations of the Egyptian civilization incorrect.
However, astronomers largely met these claims with skepticism and made sure to find tangible proof. They found a number of things. First and foremost, neither the pyramids nor Orion’s belt form a truly straight line. This fact was known for a long time. The stars comprise an arc with a southward bend, whereas the pyramids bend to the north. So in order for them to match, you need to flip the celestial map upside down.
In their first publication, the authors of the theory even mentioned this problem. In the subsequent writings, they appeared to have forgotten about it, which doesn’t lend more credence to their ever-evolving claims. The second problem discovered by astronomers was the angle of Orion’s belt. When the vernal equinox occurred in the Leo constellation, the asterism was positioned at a 47-50° angle, which is a far cry from the 38° angle of the pyramids. Once again, the theory seems to crumble.
There is no evidence for any correlation between the positioning of the pyramids, the Sphinx, and Orion’s belt. Moreover, Zodiac constellations that include Leo only reached Mesopotamia and Egypt much later, long after the construction of the pyramids.
At the end of the day, we don’t really have to come up with wild theories for the mysterious history of Orion’s belt. Its astronomical history is more than enough. As already mentioned, the estimated distance between these stars varies greatly. So we can’t even say for sure how far they are located from each other, enough to form such a remarkable sight here on Earth.
