Spica
Blue giant (close binary) · Alpha Virginis
Brightest star in Virgo
Spica is the luminous blue beacon of Virgo and is actually a very close pair of hot stars orbiting every four days, so near that mutual gravity distorts them into egg shapes. The pair is a rotating ellipsoidal variable detectable only by spectroscopy.
Illustration generated from temperature, not a photograph
11.4 ☉
mass (the Sun = 1)
20,512 ×
as bright as the Sun
25,300 K
surface · blue-white star
7 R☉
radius (the Sun = 1)
250 ly
from Earth
1.0
apparent magnitude
Visible to the naked eyeno equipment needed · apparent magnitude 1.0
It pours out about 20,512 times the Sun’s light. Its light has been travelling 250 years to reach us, so you see Spica as it was 250 years ago.
Source · Wikidata
It lives in
Milky Way
Barred spiral galaxy.
Other notable stars in the Milky Way
Eta CarinaeLuminous blue variableAlnilamBlue supergiantVY Canis MajorisRed hypergiantAlnitakHot blue supergiantDenebBlue-white supergiantMintakaHot blue giant multiple star
Stars of similar brightness
MimosaBlue giant25,704 ×AcruxBlue subgiant (multiple system)31,117 ×HadarBlue giant31,623 ×CanopusYellow-white bright giant13,305 ×MiraRed giant (pulsating variable)8,892 ×BetelgeuseRed supergiant59,979 ×
Worlds in the same direction on the sky→