First-magnitude red star in the constellation
Scorpio. Antares (Ant-Ares) is Greek for "Rival of
Mars", so named because when the path of Mars takes it into this part of the sky, the two celestial objects are very easy to mistake for each other.
Antares is a red supergiant, 300 times the sun's diameter and over 3000 times as luminous as the sun. It is nearly 300 light-years away and located near the ecliptic thus occasionally hidden by the moon like Regulus, Spica and Aldebaran.