Stars · Star in Virgo
Star
Spica
The ear of wheat in the Maiden’s hand. It helped Hipparchus discover that the whole sky slowly drifts.
- Constellation
- Virgo
- Designation
- α Virginis
- Apparent magnitude
- 0.98 · 16th brightest star in the night sky
- Spectral class
- B1V
- Distance
- 250 light-years
- Position (J2000)
- RA 13h 25m · Dec −11° 10′
A blue-white main-sequence star, around 28,000 K, like Rigel. About 160× brighter than the faintest star the eye can see. The light you are seeing left around 1776.
History
Around 130 BC Hipparchus found Spica two degrees from where Timocharis had measured it 150 years before. That was the discovery of precession.
Science
It is two hot blue stars so close together they are stretched into eggs by each other’s gravity, orbiting in only four days.