Scorpius

A few star patterns are easy to pick out. There’s Orion, with his prominent “belt.” There’s the Big Dipper. And on summer evenings, there’s Scorpius. It really does look like a scorpion skittering along the horizon.

Some of the stars that outline the scorpion are related – they were born from the same giant complex of gas and dust. That includes Antares, the scorpion’s bright orange heart.

Antares and the other family members we can see with our eyes alone are all supergiants – many times the size and mass of the Sun. And all of them are quite young – no more than 10 million to 15 million years old. None of these showoffs will stick around much longer, though. Such heavy stars “burn” through their nuclear fuel in a hurry. At the end of their short lives, they explode – briefly outshining the combined light of most of the galaxy’s other stars.

But the supergiants aren’t the only stars in this impressive family. Thousands of smaller and fainter stars have been born in the same complex. And thousands more are taking shape today – less-flashy stars that will outlive their brilliant siblings.

Scorpius is in the south at nightfall, quite low above the horizon. It has a curving body with a prominent “stinger” at the end, like a big letter “J.” Some cultures have seen it as a fishhook. Either way, it’s one of the easiest star patterns to pick out in all the night sky.

More about Scorpius tomorrow.

Script by Damond Benningfield