Nature ovservation

When observing the moon last night for the moon phase log I couldn't help but notice how clear the sky was. The stars were amazing and Orion's belt looked like it was going to come out of the sky. Because I was so amazed by it I wanted to do a little bit more research on it. I found some interesting information that I didn't know about:

The tight linear grouping of the prominent white stars Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka in the constellation of Orion.

The names of all three stars refer to the set: the outer two are named after the "belt" of the Arabs' "Central One" (a mysterious female figure), while Alnilam comes from an Arabic word that aptly means "the string of pearls."

The proximity of the three stars in the sky is an illusion. In fact, the stars at either end of the Belt, Alnitak and Mintaka, are the closest together in space, Alnitak being a little over 800 light-years away, and Mintaka 100 light-years farther off. The central star, Alnilam, is much more distant than either of these, lying on the edge of the Orion Molecular Cloud, more than 1,300 light-years from the Sun. Alnilam is also easily the most massive and luminous of the three stars, so that despite its greater distance it still shines more brightly than its two companions.

www.daviddarling.info/.../O/OrionsBelt.html

This information was really interesting to me because it was science that I didn't know about and thought it would be interesting to share.