APOD 3.1-Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka

The three names of this Apod are the three stars in the belt of Orion. The stars are in order in the picture starting left to right diagonally. The stars are all blue supergiants and are more massive and hotter than our sun. All three are about 20 times as massive and thousands of times brighter than the sun. Alnitak alone is 35,000 times brighter with a surface temp of 60,000F-compared to 8,000K of the sun's temp. Luckily for Earth the stars are 1500 light years away. Earth would have to be 6 times the distance of Pluto for life to exist.
This region of Orion is also full of nebulas. To the bottom of Alnitak you can see the famous Horsehead Nebula and to the top is the Flame Nebula. The Orion Nebula is located off at the bottom of the view. It covers 4.4x3.5 degrees of the sky.