Spaaace

The Webb telescope has enabled astronomers to find out some really cool things about the space around us, including about Orion's Belt!

The Belt

In Orion's Belt, the star on the left is a part of the Horse Head Nebula. The center star is called Alnilam. The star on the right, Delta Orionis, is actually a system of five (5) stars!

Delta Orionis is a trinary system consisting of two single stars and the thrid mass is another trinary system. This smaller system, Delta Orionis A, has a pair of binary stars, that orbit each other very closely, which is orbited by a third star. That's so many stars!

Delta Orionis A is a pair of two massive stars, the smaller of which is 10 times the mass of our sun! The larger star, Delta Orionis Aa, is 25 times the mass of our sun. Because these stars are relatively close to us, they are ideal for observing how massive stars affect the things around them.