Tuesday, March 18, 2008

On Spica the star

I did a wiki on Spica.. and this is what they had to say:

Spica (pronounced /ˈspaɪkə/) (also known as α Vir / α Virginis / Alpha Virginis) is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and the 15th brightest star in the nighttime sky. It is 260 light years distant from Earth. A blue giant, it is a variable of the Beta Cephei type.

So first of all, let me start off by apologising to those to whom i had given the wrong pronunciation, though if you ask me, I liked the old pronunciation much better.

Secondly, for the sake of those who still do not know, what I'm talking about, let me take you through the usual routine.

See, my name is Chitra. It means "picture" in Sanskrit. It is also a name of a star which is usually seen during April. The rest of the world calls the star "Spica". Hence, the title of the blog.

But there is more to it, as i recently discovered. Spica, wiki tells me, is a binary star. Which means, what we perceive as one star is in fact two stars.

Hmmm.. I wonder if my parents were psychic when they christened me!

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