The future of the Orion constellation (speeded-up) @ESAScienceHub

Uploaded June 2017 | Updated September 2026, 53 minutes ago

This is a speeded-up version of the video revealing how our view of the Orion constellation will evolve over the next 450 000 years. This version is 10 times faster than the original video; for illustrative purposes, it shows the stars moving several times forwards and backwards in time, between the present epoch and 450 000 years from now.

Amid a myriad of drifting stars, the shape of Orion as defined by its brightest stars is slowly rearranged into a new pattern as time goes by.

The portion of the sky depicted in the video measures 40 × 20° – as a comparison, the diameter of the full Moon in the sky is about half a degree.

The video is based on data from ESA's Gaia and Hipparcos satellites, as well as additional information from ground-based observations.

Read the full story "The future of the Orion constellation" at:
http://sci.esa.int/gaia/59206-the-future-of-the-orion-constellation/

Watch the evolution of two million stellar positions on the entire sky at:
youtube.com/watch?v=Ag0qsSFJBAk

Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo

More information about this video can be found at http://sci.esa.int/gaia/59209-the-future-of-the-orion-constellation-speeded-up/

The future of the Orion constellation (speeded-up)

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