Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation Orion, where it makes up Orion's "left foot". (On the right from our perspective.) Rigel is the sixth brightest star in the night sky. Its name derives from the Arabic Riǧl Ǧawza al-Yusra, which was condensed to Rigel. This means "Left Foot of the Central One". Instead of referring to Orion as "Orion", the Arabic world called this constellation "the Central One".

Rigel is a bluish-white supergiant star containing 17 solar masses of material, shining with a luminosity 40,000 times greater than our Sun. Being a supergiant, it is approximately 70 solar radii in diameter, or about a third of the distance from the Sun to Earth. Located between 700 and 900 light years from the Earth (astronomers don't know for sure), Rigel is the brightest star in our local area of the Milky Way. The next brightest star, Deneb, is a full 3,300 light years away. Rigel is closely aligned in the sky with the Orion Nebula, one of the only nebulae visible with the naked eye, although it is really twice the distance of Rigel from Earth.

Rigel's brightness is intense enough to light up various dust clouds in its vicinity, such as the famous Witch Head Nebula, located 1,000 light years away. Like many stars in the universe, Rigel is part of a system with more than one star — the Rigel we know is Rigel A, while Rigel B is used to refer to a pair of main sequence stars that orbit Rigel at a distance of 2200 AU. Because Rigel A is much brighter, it is referred to as the "primary" star whereas the two components of Rigel B are "secondary."

Rigel is surrounded by a cloud of expelled gas. This is present in many supergiant stars, a side effect of their low density and high core temperatures and solar wind.