Space and Astronomy Atlas

How The Universe Works
Celestial Objects

Spica

Multiple Star Systems

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Spica is the brightest object in the constellation Virgo and one of the twenty brightest stars in the night sky, carrying the Bayer designation Alpha Virginis. Parallax measurements place it about 250 light-years from the Sun, and it is a spectroscopic binary and rotating ellipsoidal variable, meaning its two component stars orbit so closely together that each is pulled into an egg-like shape and can only be told apart by their separate spectra; the primary component is a blue giant and a variable star of the Beta Cephei type.

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