Antares

OrionThe constellation Orion is one of the easiest to recognize because of a group of three stars. The three stars form a straight line that is often called Orion's Belt. The Orion Nebula can be seen as a pink fuzzy light below the line of three stars. The red star Betelgeuse is in the upper left, and the bright star Rigel is in the lower right.

Antares, red, semiregular variable star, with apparent visual magnitude about 1.1, the brightest star in the zodiacal constellation Scorpius and one of the largest known stars, having several hundred times the diameter of the Sun and 10,000 times the Sun’s luminosity. It has a fifth-magnitude blue companion. Antares lies about 600 light-years from the Earth. The name seems to come from a Greek phrase meaning “rival of Ares” (i.e., rival of the planet Mars) and was probably given because of the star’s colour and brightness.

(List of Brightest Stars as Seen from Earth)

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Meg Matthias.
Citation Information
Article Title: Antares
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 21 January 2025
Access Date: February 22, 2025