Primordial Ooze

I’m sure everyone realizes that the Galaxy we live in is called the Milky Way. But did you know that our sun lies in the spiral arm known as the Orion Arm?

Did you realize that many of the stars you see in the night sky are also located in the Orion arm? Only the brightest stars from other parts of the Milky Way are easy to spot, particularly in light-polluted skies like the ones I suffer with.

Orion is one of the easiest constellations to recognize in Northern skies largely due to the brightness of Betelgeuse and Rigel and the amazing alignment of the stars that comprise Orion’s belt.

Do you see how Orion’s belt and Betelgeuse are represented in the first image? In the image above, Betelgeuse is the upper-right shoulder of the constallation… assuming right is to the right in the image. Did you notice how close Betelgeuse and our Sun are in the first image? The following video, which shows a trip from the Sun to Mintaka (one of the stars on Orion’s belt), makes it very clear that Betelgeuse is very close to us and as soon as we start approaching Mintaka, Beletgeuse zooms out of our view.

See the video.

UPDATE: Sorry, newbie that I am, I confused Betelgeuse for Bellatrix. Bellatrix is the star on the right. The really bright star on the left is Betelgeuse.