48 Fun Facts About Virgo

Gamma Virginis, a celebrated close double star, is known by which proper name?

Porrima is Gamma Virginis, a pair of near-twin F-type stars that orbit each other roughly every 169 years; the name comes from a Roman goddess of prophecy.

Virgo is which sign in the order of the zodiac?

Virgo is the 6th of the twelve signs when counted from Aries; it closes the first half of the zodiac wheel before the second six signs begin.

Which planet rules Virgo in traditional astrology?

Mercury pulls double duty, ruling Gemini as well; some astrologers also count Virgo as Mercury's sign of exaltation.

Virgo belongs to which classical element?

Virgo is an Earth sign: each of the four classical elements takes three signs, and Virgo is the middle one of the three earth signs, read as practical and grounded.

Which sign sits directly opposite Virgo on the zodiac wheel?

Pisces lies 180 degrees from Virgo, directly across the zodiac wheel; both are mutable signs, each closing out a season.

Under the tropical zodiac the Sun is in Virgo between roughly which dates?

Under the tropical zodiac the Sun is in Virgo from about August 24 to September 23, though it only enters the actual constellation Virgo around September 16, some three weeks after the sign begins.

Which degrees of the zodiac does Virgo span?

Each sign takes 30 degrees of the 360-degree ecliptic, and Virgo's slice runs from the 150th to 180th degree, counted from the first point of Aries.

In traditional zodiacal body lore, which part of the body does Virgo rule?

Virgo rules the intestines: the medieval 'zodiac man' assigns every sign a body region from head to feet, and Virgo's share is the belly and bowels, the seat of digestion.

What is Virgo called in Hindu astrology?

Kanya also means maiden, and Hindu astrologers class it as an earth sign ruled by Budha, their Mercury.

Virgo is the largest constellation of the zodiac and the second-largest in the whole sky after which one?

Hydra, the water snake, is the only constellation larger than Virgo; Virgo ranks second by area among the 88 constellations and is by far the largest of the twelve on the zodiac.

How many days does the Sun take to cross the constellation Virgo, longer than any other?

The Sun takes 44 days to cross Virgo, from about September 16 to October 30, the longest solar passage through any constellation because Virgo is so wide along the ecliptic.

Which of these key points on the ecliptic lies within the boundaries of Virgo?

The autumn equinox point, where the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading south each September, has sat inside Virgo for more than two thousand years; precession moves it only one degree per 72 years, so it stays for centuries yet.

What does the name of Virgo's brightest star mean in Latin?

The star's name is Latin for 'ear of grain', the spike of grain the maiden holds in classical star maps; Ptolemy's Greek name for the star, Stachys, means the same thing.

Roughly how far away is the Virgo Cluster?

The Virgo Cluster lies about 54 million light-years away, near enough that its brightest members show in small telescopes, and its distance is a key rung of the cosmic distance ladder.

Roughly how far away is Alpha Virginis, the constellation's brightest star?

Alpha Virginis lies about 250 light-years away; it is a close binary whose two egg-shaped stars distort each other as they orbit in just four days.

Which ancient astronomer is thought to have discovered precession using data from Alpha Virginis?

Hipparchus, around 129 BC, compared his measured position of Alpha Virginis with the one Timocharis had recorded a century and a half earlier and found it had shifted about two degrees, revealing precession.

Along with Arcturus and Denebola, Virgo's brightest star forms which seasonal asterism?

The Spring Triangle links Arcturus, Denebola and Virgo's brightest star across the northern spring sky; adding Cor Caroli turns it into the Great Diamond of Virgo.

Which planet last passed in front of Alpha Virginis, in 1783, and will next do so in 2197?

Venus passed in front of Alpha Virginis on 10 November 1783 and is next due to do so in September 2197; lying about two degrees from the ecliptic, the star is covered by the Moon far more often.

Five of the constellation's brighter stars form an asterism known as what?

The Bowl of Virgo is the cup-shaped asterism traced by five of the constellation's brighter stars, among them Gamma and Epsilon Virginis; with Alpha and Theta Virginis added, the figure forms a Y.

Which proper name belongs to Epsilon Virginis, a yellow giant some 110 light-years away?

Vindemiatrix is Epsilon Virginis, a yellow giant about 110 light-years away; its Latin name means 'grape-gatherer', because its dawn rising once marked the start of the grape harvest.

The constellation is famous for containing a huge cluster of what?

The Virgo Cluster is a vast swarm of galaxies near the border with Coma Berenices, the nearest rich cluster to our own Local Group and the gravitational heart of our corner of the universe.

Approximately how many members does the Virgo Cluster contain?

The Virgo Cluster holds about 1,300 members by the usual count, with some tallies approaching 2,000; a 6-inch telescope can show around 160 of them on a clear night.

By what older name is the Virgo Supercluster also known?

The Local Supercluster is the older name for the Virgo Supercluster, a grouping some 110 million light-years across whose clusters and groups, our Local Group among them, surround the Virgo Cluster.

Which galaxy in Virgo hosted the first-ever direct image of a black hole, released in April 2019?

Messier 87, the giant elliptical at the heart of the Virgo Cluster, was the Event Horizon Telescope's target; its April 2019 image showed a bright ring of hot gas around the shadow of the central black hole.

Roughly how massive is the central black hole imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2019?

The Event Horizon Telescope team weighed that black hole at about 6.5 billion suns, more than a thousand times the roughly 4 million of the Milky Way's own central black hole.

How many globular clusters orbit M87, compared with 150 to 200 for the Milky Way?

Around 15,000 globular clusters swarm M87 by common estimates, with other counts near 12,000, against a few hundred for the Milky Way; the galaxy also fires a jet some 5,000 light-years long.

Which nickname belongs to M104, lying about ten degrees west of Virgo's brightest star?

The Sombrero Galaxy, Messier 104, is a nearly edge-on spiral whose bright bulging core and broad disc look like a wide-brimmed Mexican hat; it lies about 30 million light-years away.

M104's hat-like look comes from a large central bulge and what other feature?

A prominent dust lane rings M104's disc and, seen nearly edge-on, cuts darkly across the glowing bulge like a hat brim; Spitzer infrared images later revealed a halo far larger than expected.

Virgo contains 3C 273, notable as the first-ever identified example of what?

A quasar is the blazing core of a remote galaxy powered by a feeding black hole; 3C 273, identified by Maarten Schmidt in 1963, was the first recognised, and at magnitude 12.9 it is within reach of amateur telescopes.

Roughly how far away is 3C 273?

3C 273 lies some 2.4 billion light-years away, at redshift 0.158; even so, a luminosity trillions of times the Sun's keeps it at magnitude 12.9, within reach of a modest telescope.

Chi Virginis hosts one of the most massive planets known, about how many times Jupiter's mass?

Chi Virginis b has a minimum mass of about 11 Jupiters, just under the roughly 13-Jupiter line above which an object counts as a brown dwarf rather than a planet.

Which Greek goddess of justice fled the corrupt Earth to become the constellation Virgo?

She was said to be the last immortal to live among humans; the asteroid 5 Astraea is named after her.

Which object did classical artists usually show the goddess of justice holding?

A pair of scales is the justice goddess's emblem, weighing each case; the scales placed in the sky beside Virgo became the zodiac sign that follows her.

In Virgil's fourth Eclogue, the returning goddess Virgo heralds the rebirth of which age?

The Golden Age: Virgil's fourth Eclogue declares 'now Virgo returns, Saturn's reign returns', promising that a newborn child will bring back the golden race.

Which harvest goddess, mother of Persephone, is one of the classical identifications of Virgo?

Demeter, the Greek goddess of grain and the harvest, is one of Virgo's classical identities; the Romans called her Ceres, the root of the word cereal.

Persephone was tricked into staying part of each year in the underworld by eating what?

Pomegranate seeds: Persephone ate a few in the underworld, binding her to spend part of every year below, and her yearly return was the Greeks' explanation for spring.

Which secret rites of the harvest goddess and her daughter promised initiates a happy afterlife?

The Eleusinian Mysteries, held at Eleusis near Athens for well over a thousand years, initiated worshippers into the cult of the harvest goddess and her daughter with a promise of a blessed afterlife.

Which daughter of Icarius hanged herself in grief and became Virgo in Athenian myth?

Erigone, daughter of the Athenian Icarius, hanged herself over her father's body after shepherds killed him, and the gods placed her among the stars as Virgo.

Per Diodorus, Parthenos leapt from a cliff after pigs smashed her father's vessel of what?

Wine: Staphylus's daughters Parthenos and Molpadia fell asleep guarding a newly found vessel of wine, the pigs smashed it, and the girls leapt from a cliff in fear before Apollo saved them.

In the Babylonian MUL.APIN, part of Virgo was known by what name, for the goddess Shala's ear of grain?

The Furrow, AB.SIN in the MUL.APIN star lists, stood for the grain goddess Shala with her crop; the Greeks kept the farming image when they made the area Virgo.

The European gravitational-wave detector named after the Virgo Cluster stands near which Italian city?

Pisa: the Virgo interferometer at Cascina, with two 3-kilometre arms, joined the LIGO detectors in 2017 to help locate gravitational-wave events on the sky, and takes its name from the Virgo Cluster.

Which nakshatra, or lunar mansion, of Hindu astronomy is marked by Virgo's brightest star?

Chitra, 'the bright one', is the nakshatra marked by Alpha Virginis; the Hindu calendar month Chaitra takes its name from the full Moon that falls near this star.

Who first reported, in 1918, the straight jet from the Virgo Cluster's giant central galaxy?

Heber Curtis, observing at Lick Observatory in 1918, noted 'a curious straight ray' from the galaxy's core, the first description of the relativistic jet later traced for thousands of light-years.

The pulsar PSR B1257+12 in Virgo is famous as the first star found to have what?

Planets outside the Solar System were first confirmed here: in 1992 Wolszczan and Frail found two worlds orbiting this dead star, with a third added in 1994.

Between which two constellations does Virgo lie in the zodiac?

Leo and Libra flank Virgo: the lion lies to the west, where the Sun comes from, and the scales to the east, where it goes next along the ecliptic.

Which two signs share Virgo's classical element?

Taurus and Capricorn join Virgo in one triplicity of three signs spaced 120 degrees apart on the wheel, forming the grand trine of the practical, grounded signs.

Which star in Virgo has a confirmed planet about 7.5 times the mass of Jupiter?

70 Virginis b, announced in January 1996 by Marcy and Butler, was among the earliest planets found around a Sun-like star; its minimum mass is about 7.5 Jupiters on a 117-day orbit.

In the Erigone myth, her father Icarius and her dog Maera became which two constellations?

Boötes and Canis Minor: Icarius became the herdsman Boötes and his faithful dog Maera the Little Dog, with Procyon as its star, after Zeus or Dionysus set all three in the sky.