Why does Antares glow and sparkle a beautiful red colour?
ANTARES (Alpha Scorpii). A brilliant jewel set within the Milky Way, Antares guides us to one of the great constellations of the sky, the Zodiac’s Scorpius (or Scorpio), the celestial scorpion, one of the few constellations that actually looks like what it represents. Antares, a class M (M1.5) red supergiant gleaming redly at the scorpion’s heart, has a color similar to Mars. Since it is found within the Zodiac, which contains the apparent path of the Sun and planets, it is commonly mistaken for the red planet, a fact shown by its name, Antares, or “Ant-Ares,” which means “like Mars,” “Ares” being the Greek name for the god of war. This magnificent first magnitude (typically 0.96) star, shining opposite Betelgeuse, its counterpart in Orion, is ranked the 15th brightest in the sky. It is, however, a semi-regular variable that can change by several tenths of magnitude over a period of years. Its great distance of 550 light years reveals that it is truly luminous, to the eye almost 10,000
