Orion isn't one of the zodiac constellations, though. But from our viewpoint on Earth, they look like nearby neighbors. But the farthest star in that constellation is Alnilam, which is about 1,300 light-years away. But stars that seem to be right next to each other in a constellation may in fact be hundreds of light-years apart.įor example, in the well-known constellation Orion, the nearest star to us is Bellatrix, a bit more than 200 light-years from Earth. Read more: Space junk is blocking our view of the starsĪlthough we're looking at stars across vast expanses of three-dimensional space, the arrangement we see looks two-dimensional. Similar to how our sun looks like it's moving across the sky when it's really our planet rotating as it orbits the sun, constellations appear to be rotating across the sky when that movement is really due to our changing viewpoint. That appearance of star movement actually has more to do with the rotation of Earth than the movements of stars themselves. (Image credit: Till Credner)įrom Earth, stars appear to move across the sky on a regular schedule. A visual mosaic of the 12 classic constellations in the western zodiac, photographed in the night sky, marked and outlined.
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