46 Fun Facts About Virgo

Virgo's star Porrima is named after a goddess of prophecy from which mythology?

Roman: Porrima was a goddess of prophecy, and her Latin name stands out because most star names are Arabic; a telescope splits the star into two near-twin suns.

Virgo is the zodiac's sixth sign when counting from which sign?

Aries comes first because its sign begins at the March equinox, the point the signs are counted from; counting on from there makes Virgo sixth, the last sign of the zodiac's first half.

Which planet rules Virgo in traditional astrology?

Mercury also rules Gemini, but astrologers read it differently in each: Gemini gets the planet's talk and expression, while Virgo gets its analysis and eye for fine detail.

Virgo belongs to which classical element?

Earth: the four elements repeat in a fixed order around the zodiac, fire, earth, air, then water, so every fourth sign shares one, and Virgo lands on earth's second turn.

Which sign sits directly opposite Virgo on the zodiac wheel?

Pisces sits 180 degrees from Virgo, so their seasons fall six months apart; astrologers treat the pair as two ends of one axis, Virgo's practical help against Pisces's spiritual guidance.

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

August 24 to September 23 is one listing of the sign's dates; the moment the Sun enters the sign shifts slightly from year to year, and many horoscopes print August 23 to September 22 instead.

Astrologers class Virgo, Gemini and Sagittarius together as which kind of sign?

Mutable signs each close out a season, Virgo at the end of the northern summer, and astrologers say that in-between timing is what makes them adaptable and changeable.

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

The intestines: medieval doctors kept a 'zodiac man' chart of these pairings and would not bleed or cut a part of the body while the Moon was passing through its sign.

Which Sanskrit name, meaning 'maiden', does Virgo carry in Hindu astrology?

Kanya is also a month of the Indian solar calendar, from mid-September to mid-October, weeks behind the Western sign because Hindu astrology follows the stars themselves.

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

Hydra, the water snake, edges out Virgo by fewer than ten square degrees of sky, yet it is so faint that only one of its stars, Alphard, is at all bright.

For most of the zodiac sign Virgo's dates, the Sun really sits in front of which constellation's stars?

Leo: the signs were pinned to the seasons long ago and the sky has since drifted by about one sign, so the Sun does not reach the constellation Virgo until around September 16.

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, far beyond Andromeda?

About 54 million light-years: close enough that the cluster's brightest members show up in a small telescope.

Stargazers follow the Big Dipper's handle in an 'arc to Arcturus', then on to which star, Virgo's brightest?

Spica lies about 250 light-years away and is really two stars whirling around each other every four days, so close that gravity pulls each of them into an egg shape.

Which ancient astronomer is thought to have discovered precession using positions of Virgo's brightest star?

Hipparchus compared his position for the star with one Timocharis had recorded about 150 years earlier, found it had drifted some two degrees, and concluded that the whole sky was slowly shifting.

Arcturus, Virgo's brightest star and one of the Lion's bright stars together form which seasonal asterism?

The Spring Triangle usually takes Regulus as the Lion's corner, though some stargazers swap in dimmer Denebola, which makes the triangle more nearly equal-sided.

Which planet last passed in front of Virgo's brightest star in 1783, with the next pass due in 2197?

Venus covered the star on 10 November 1783 and is not due back until September 2197; because the star lies so near the Sun's path, the Moon hides it far more often.

Five of Virgo's brighter stars trace a curved asterism known as what?

The Bowl of Virgo is a half-ring of five stars; Chinese astronomers made the same stars part of the walls of a celestial palace court, with the faint stars inside cast as ministers.

Which star in Virgo once marked the start of the grape harvest by rising at dawn?

Vindemiatrix means 'grape-gatherer' in Latin; Ovid says the star is Ampelus, a youth loved by Bacchus who fell to his death picking grapes and was lifted into the sky.

Which rock band's crest includes two fairies to stand for its Virgo frontman's star sign?

Queen's crest was drawn by the singer himself, an art-school graduate, who gave every member his sign: two lions, a crab, and a pair of fairies for his own Virgo.

By what other name is the Virgo Supercluster known?

The Local Supercluster is the name Gérard de Vaucouleurs settled on in 1958, after first calling our home collection of clusters the 'Local Supergalaxy'.

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

Messier 87's black hole was caught by the Event Horizon Telescope, eight radio observatories linked across the globe to act as a single dish as wide as our planet.

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

About 6.5 billion suns, over a thousand times the mass of the Milky Way's own central black hole; that sheer size is why its shadow could be pictured from another galaxy.

A giant Virgo galaxy is ringed by over 10,000 of which objects, against the Milky Way's 150 to 200?

Globular clusters are dense swarms of ancient stars, and the galaxy is thought to have pulled many of its thousands away from smaller galaxies that strayed too close.

Which nickname belongs to M104, a bright galaxy in Virgo that we see almost edge-on?

The Sombrero Galaxy joined the Messier list late: Messier only noted it by hand in his own copy in 1781, and it became M104 in 1921, when Camille Flammarion found the note.

M104's famous silhouette comes from a large central bulge and what other feature?

A prominent dust lane rings the galaxy's disc; William Herschel noted the 'dark stratum' in 1784, and infrared studies show it is where the galaxy still makes new stars.

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

A quasar: 3C 273 looked like a faint nearby star until Maarten Schmidt read its spectrum in 1963 and realised it lay far beyond the Milky Way, blazing with extraordinary power.

Roughly how far away is 3C 273, visible in backyard telescopes?

About 2.4 billion light-years by the usual estimate, and it is so luminous that from some 30 light-years away it would shine as brightly in our sky as the Sun.

A planet of Chi Virginis weighs at least 11 Jupiters, nearly enough to count as what?

Brown dwarf: above about 13 Jupiter masses an object can fuse deuterium, so astronomers class it as a 'failed star' and no longer a planet, and this one's minimum mass falls just short.

In Greek myth, which goddess of justice abandoned a corrupted mankind to become the constellation Virgo?

Astraea was said to be the last of the immortals still living among humans, leaving only as they turned to war; she is often treated as one figure with Dike, another name for Justice.

Romans saw Libra as the scales of Virgo's justice goddess; what had earlier Greeks made of the same stars?

The Scorpion's claws: Greek astronomers called the area Chelae, and Libra's two brightest stars still carry Arabic names meaning the southern claw and the northern claw.

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

The Golden Age: Virgil writes that 'now the Maid returns' and a newborn boy will end the iron race, lines that later Christians read as a prophecy of the birth of Christ.

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 bound to spend part of every year in the underworld after eating what?

Pomegranate seeds: having eaten in the underworld she could never leave it for good, and the Greeks explained the turning seasons by her yearly going and return.

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

The Eleusinian Mysteries sent a procession of initiates from Athens to Eleusis, and their vow of secrecy held so well that what happened inside the hall is still unknown.

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

Erigone was led by her dog to the body of her father Icarius, killed by shepherds, and hanged herself where he lay; the gods then set her in the sky as Virgo.

In Diodorus's telling, the maiden Parthenos leapt from a cliff after pigs broke her father's jar of what?

Wine, then a newly discovered drink: Parthenos and her sister Molpadia fell asleep guarding it, pigs smashed the jar, and the girls leapt in fear of their father before Apollo saved them.

Which people's clay-tablet star lists called part of Virgo 'the Furrow', after a farming goddess?

The Babylonians listed the Furrow, tied to the goddess Shala, in their MUL.APIN tablets about three thousand years ago, and the Greeks later turned the same stars into a harvest maiden.

A European gravitational-wave detector that shares the name Virgo stands near which Italian city?

Pisa: the Virgo detector, with two 3-kilometre arms in the countryside at Cascina, caught its first gravitational wave on 14 August 2017, two weeks after it began taking data.

Court poets hailed which English ruler as the maiden of Virgo come down from the stars?

Elizabeth I never married, and her poets made a myth of it, casting her as the star-maiden returned to rule a new age of peace; fittingly, her birthday was 7 September.

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, betrayed by tiny irregularities in the dead star's clockwork radio pulses; the three known are Draugr, Poltergeist and Phobetor.

Between which two constellations does Virgo lie in the zodiac?

Leo and Libra flank Virgo, so the three cross the sky in file: the lion rises first in the east, the maiden follows, and the scales come up behind her.

Which two signs share Virgo's classical element?

Taurus and Capricorn sit 120 degrees either side of Virgo, an angle astrologers call a trine and read as easy harmony, which is why the three are said to get along.

The giant planet found circling 70 Virginis in 1996 was quickly nicknamed after which fairy-tale character?

Goldilocks: early estimates made the planet neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water, though later measurements showed it is in fact far too hot.

In an Athenian myth of Virgo, the maiden's father Icarius and her dog Maera became which two constellations?

Boötes and Canis Minor: in Hyginus's telling the murdered Icarius became the herdsman and his howling dog the Little Dog, though some say Maera is only its bright star Procyon.