Arcturus and Antares are visible during the summer i.e. now. Arcturus
is an obviously red / orange object high in the south west at this time
of year. Antares is a deep red but low in the sky and east of Acturus.
The other stars are all visible in the winter months.
Aldebaran is the 'Eye of the bull' in Taurus. Betelgeuse and Rigel are
at opposite ends of Orion - one of the easiest constellations to find -
high in the south on a winter's night. The belt stars of Orion point to
Aldebaran in one direction - and Sirius in the other. Sirius is the
brightest star in the sky.
Antares is so big that, if it
were in our solar system, it would be as big as the orbit of Mars
around the sun. And it's not the biggest...
Our Sun is
likely to end up slightly smaller than Antares when it enter its red
giant phase - in about 5 billion years time. This will happen when it
starts to run out of hydrogen to convert to helium.
Two
stars had to live and die (serially) before their remains gave birth to
the Sun and our solar system. After that it took 5 billiion years for
the Earth to develop to the point where we could appear. We are so
small in some ways and yet so big in others.
Very interesting perspectives - it's an immense universe full of some enormous spheres! |
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