Astronomy Picture of the Day - Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka

NASA ^ | 20 Nov, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Aygen Erkaslan

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka are the bright bluish stars from east to west (upper right to lower left) along the diagonal in this cosmic vista. Otherwise known as the Belt of Orion, these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. They lie from 700 to 2,000 light-years away, born of Orion's well-studied interstellar clouds. In fact, clouds of gas and dust adrift in this region have some surprisingly familiar shapes, including the dark Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula near Alnitak at the upper right. The famous Orion Nebula itself is off the right edge of this colorful starfield. The telescopic frame spans almost 4 degrees on the sky.

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TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[MtnClimber]

Distances in light years.

[Diogenesis]

thank you.

[BenLurkin]

Interesting!

[HandyDandy]

Sort of calls to mind the placement of the three pyramids at Giza ………hmmmmm.

[Nateman]

APOD finally mentions 3i-Atlas! While it only shows a recent picture from Earth it has a link to the extension fleet of spacecraft which followed it while it was hidden by the Sun from Earth.