dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (01/27/85)
Rigel is a huge blazing white-hot star -- visible each evening now in the southern sky. More -- after this. January 27 Rigel Stars are born with different quantities of mass -- and the most massive stars are those destined to live the shortest lives. An example of a young massive star is Rigel in the constellation Orion. This constellation is easy to pick out because the belt of Orion makes a short straight row of three stars -- unlike anything else in the sky. Rigel isn't one of the three stars in the belt. But it's very noticeable as a bright blue-white star located below Orion's belt -- now high in the south each evening. Rigel is the 7th brightest star in our sky -- and it's located as far away as 900 light-years. That means the star must really be large and very hot -- Rigel is some 50 times greater in diameter than our sun -- and it's nearly 60 thousand times as bright! Rigel is the brightest member of the Orion Association -- a group of blazing hot stars in that region of the galaxy -- at whose heart lies the famous Orion Nebula -- a vast cloud in space from which new stars even now are being born. We know Rigel is a relatively young star -- a star recently emerged from its cocoon of gas and dust -- because stars like Rigel don't last very long. Rigel was born very massive -- and the most massive stars burn themselves out at the fastest rate -- meaning that such stars may survive only a few million years instead of the billions of years characteristic of stars like our sun. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin