• Spica Spica is a star in Virgo. ########### ############### ################### ################### ################### ################### ################### ############### ########### Type Blue-white subgiant Constellation Virgo Magnitude 1.0 Spectral type B1III-IV+B2V Distance 262 light years Variable eclipses every 4.015 days You need naked eye Known as Bayer α Vir Yale HR 5056 More information about Spica Spica is the only bright star in Virgo, and it is Latin for "the ear of wheat" the maiden is holding, which is the harvest image the whole constellation is built on. It is not one star but two, so close together that they orbit in four days and their mutual gravity pulls each into an egg shape, which is why the brightness rises and falls slightly as they turn. It lies almost exactly on the line the Sun, Moon and planets follow, so the Moon covers it from time to time. The way to find it is to follow the curve of the Big Dipper handle to Arcturus and carry on the same arc. Bayer lettered the stars of each constellation in his Uranometria of 1603, in order of brightness. He was working from Tycho's magnitudes by eye, and the order he recorded is often wrong. First published in 1930 by Yale astronomer Frank Schlesinger, and maintained since, the Yale Bright Star Catalogue lists every star down to magnitude 6.5. It contains 9,110 stars. where it is tonight: skymap.sh/Spica