video 22-April-2018 22:23:39

The future of the Orion constellation

09 June 2017

This video reveals how our view of the Orion constellation will evolve over the next 450 000 years.

Amid a myriad of drifting stars, the shape of Orion as defined by its brightest stars is slowly rearranged into a new pattern as time goes by.

The portion of the sky depicted in the video measures 40 × 20° – as a comparison, the diameter of the full Moon in the sky is about half a degree.

The video is based on data from ESA's Gaia and Hipparcos satellites, as well as additional information from ground-based observations.

Full story: The future of the Orion constellation

The evolution of two million stellar positions on the entire sky is shown here.

A speeded-up version of the video is available here.

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO License. Creative Commons License

Last Update: 04 September 2017

For further information please contact: SciTech.editorial@esa.int

See Also

  • The future of the Orion constellation (http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=59206)

Related Videos

  • The future of the Orion constellation (speeded-up) (http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=59209)
  • The future of the Orion constellation (with logos) (http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=59207)