Bellatrix

stars · Orion · night sky · space

A brilliant blue star. Bellatrix shines as the third-brightest star in the constellation Orion. Its name comes from an Arabic word meaning 'the female warrior', which fits a star this bright and powerful.

Easy to spot. If you look at Orion on a clear night, Bellatrix sits about 5 degrees to the west of Betelgeuse, the red supergiant. It's typically the 25th-brightest star visible from Earth overall.

Closer than you'd think. At 244.6 light-years away, Bellatrix is the closest major star in Orion to us. That means light from this star takes about 245 years to reach your eyes.

Slightly flickering light. Bellatrix has a magnitude (brightness) that varies slightly, which means it doesn't glow at exactly the same brightness all the time, like a distant lamp that sometimes dims and brightens.