Astronomy Picture of the Day—20190125

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2019 January 25

Orionover the Austrian Alps

ImageCredit & Copyright: Lukáš Veselý

Explanation:Do you recognize this constellation? Through the icicles and past the mountainsis Orion, one of the most identifiable star groupings on the sky and an iconfamiliar to humanity for over 30,000 years. Orion has looked pretty much thesame during the past 50,000 years and should continue to look the same for manythousands of years into the future. Orion is quite prominent in the sky thistime of year, a recurring sign of (modern) winter in Earth's northernhemisphere and summer in the south. Pictured, Orion was captured recently abovethe Austrian Alps in a composite of seven images taken by the same camera inthe same location during the same night. Below and slightly to the right ofOrion's three-star belt is the Orion Nebula, while the four bright starssurrounding the belt are, clockwise from the upper left, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix,Rigel, and Saiph.