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A blue star in Orion that lies on the fringes of the Milky Way. Omega Orionis falls within the body of the Hunter, southward from the stars Betelgeuse and Bellatrix that mark Orion's shoulders, but northward from the famous Belt. Though relatively faint in the sky, this is in fact a luminous blue giant more than 1,400 light years distant from the Solar System, and at ten parsecs' distance it would outshine Venus in the night skies of Earth.
Omega Orionis is a variable star, with a magnitude that varies between +4.4 and +4.6. It belongs to the class of stars known as Gamma Cassiopeiae variables: stars that rotate around their axes at ferocious velocities, expelling matter that causes irregular shifts in their brightness.
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