Orion

Fun facts!

• In ancient Egypt, the constellation Orion represented Osiris, god of the Underworld, who was killed and torn apart by his brother Set. His wife, Isis, reassembled the body, at which point Osiris became immortal and ascended to the sky. Isis, seen in the star Sirius in neighboring constellation Canis Major, follows Osiris across the night sky.

• It has been suggested that the positioning of the pyramids of Giza in Egypt follow the pattern of stars in Orion, and that the Great Pyramid, in which the Pharaoh Khufu is buried, was an imagined gateway between Osiris in the heavens and the Pharaoh’s body on Earth.

• Orion appears in different stories all over the world. In the constellations, the ancient Sumerians imagined their hero Gilgamesh fighting the bull of Heaven, which is perhaps why Orion appears facing Taurus the bull in the night sky. To the Jews, Orion represented biblical Samson. The Chimu Indians, who lived in what is now Peru, saw the three stars of Orion’s belt as a criminal held by the arm, with four stars outlining Orion as vultures about to tear him apart. Some Brazilian tribes imagined Orion as part of a larger constellation of a caiman. To the Inuits in the Arctic, Orion’s star Betelgeuse was a bear and the three stars of Orion’s belt were hunters.