Individually, the stars of Orion’s Belt aren’t that impressive. We pay attention to them mainly because they’re tightly grouped – a short line that’s easy to pick out. But their appearance is wildly deceiving. The stars are among the most impressive in the entire galaxy. They have to be impressive for us to see them at all, because they’re about 1200 light-years away.

Orion’s Belt is low in the east-southeast at nightfall. It extends almost straight up from the horizon. From bottom to top, its stars are Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.

Alnitak is a system of three stars. The main star is a monster – more than 30 times the mass of the Sun. Its surface is tens of thousands of degrees hotter than the Sun, so Alnitak shines blue-white. And it’s about 250,000 times brighter than the Sun.

Alnilam is a single star. And it appears to be an even bigger monster: perhaps 40 times the Sun’s mass, and 400,000 times its brightness.

Mintaka is the most complex member of the belt – a family of five stars. All of them dwarf the Sun in every possible way.

The stars in these systems are only a few million years old. But they’re so massive that they’re already nearing the end. Some of them will blast themselves to bits, leaving behind only a dead core – a neutron star or a black hole. But some might be too heavy for that. The entire star might collapse to form a black hole – impressive fates for impressive stars.

Script by Damond Benningfield