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A category of intensely hot stars, whose surface temperatures range up to 50,000 K (some nine times hotter than the surface of the Sun). O-type stars are a brilliant blue-white in colour, and are relatively rare in comparison with their cooler cousins. Probably the two best known O-type stars in the sky are Alnitak and Mintaka, the two outer stars of Orion's Belt.

Two of the three stars in Orion's Belt belong to the hot O-type spectral classification. Centred under the reticle in this image is Alnitak, the brightest O-type star in the sky, while the northwestern star of the Belt, Mintaka, is also O-type and only barely fainter than Alnitak. (The third star of Orion's Belt, the central star Alnilam, belongs to the blue B-type classification.) Imagery provided by Aladin sky atlas

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