Spica
hot blue stars · a pair circling every four days
250 light-years from Earth
Two hot blue stars 0.13 AU apart, closer than Mercury is to the Sun, circling each other every four days. The bigger one, 11 times the Sun's mass, spins fast enough to bulge about 6% at its equator, and its partner's pull stretches it a few per cent more; it will probably end as a supernova.
- 250 light-years · 25,300 K and 20,900 K
- sped up here: one lap in 8 s, really 4.01 days
- kind
- star
- size
- 0.07 AU across