Tau

Its story

Tau Orionis burns along the Hunter’s flank as a hot blue B-type giant about 494 light-years away, near the western foot of the figure. It belongs to the great fraternity of young, luminous stars that trace Orion’s silhouette —brief, violent lives lighting the gas of their own cradle across the northern winter sky—, in one of the few regions of the heavens where the birth of new stars is still, at this very moment, an event unfolding before our telescopes.