Atlas Obscura’s Wondersky columnist Rebecca Boyle is an award-winning science journalist and author of the upcoming Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are (January 2024, Random House). She regularly shares the stories and secrets of our wondrous night sky. Once upon a time, Orion, a masterful hunter, boasted that he could kill all the animals of Earth if he wanted. Horrified, the Earth goddess Gaia had him murdered by a scorpion. But other gods and goddesses mourned the mighty hunter…
