Orion is one of the most conspicuous, and most recognizable, constellations in the winter night sky - with the bright red Betelgeuse in the top left corner, the three stars of Orion's 'belt', the Orion nebula just below it and Rigel, the constellation's brightest star, in the bottom right corner.
The fiery red star below, Betelgeuse, is classified as a Class M red supergiant, one of the largest stars known. Strange as this may seem, fiery red usually indicates a cool star that is losing its radiation and dying out, while cool blue stars are the hottest, youngest stars. Betelgeuse is in fact in the last stages of its life and is expected to go supernova any time in the next million years (which is a very short time in stellar terms).
By contrast, right at the opposite end of Orion, is a bright pale blue star, Rigel. Rigel is a Class B blue supergiant. While blue supergiants are much smaller than their red counterparts (like Betelgeuse), they are amongst the hottest and brightest stars in the known Universe.
The three stars in the 'belt' below are, from left to right, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. And right below the belt is Orion's 'sword', where the Orion Nebula is located.
And just minutes after I took the image above, a strange alien craft flashed past right out of where the Orion Nebula is located - you can see the light trail left by it in the right bottom corner of the image below. Though the regular pattern of red lights of the Unidentified Flying Object may indicate that it is probably not as unidentified as I thought - this is the tell-tale signature of the warning lights of a very Earth-bound aeroplane.
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