Denebola is a Delta Scuti type variable star, meaning its luminosity varies very slightly over a period of a few hours.

[19] 15th century astronomer Ulugh Beg, gives the name Al Ṣarfah, the Changer (i.e. of the weather), as the star's individual title.

Denebola, along with Spica and Arcturus, is part of the Spring Triangle asterism, and by extension, also of the Great Diamond together with the star Cor Caroli.

The effective temperature of Denebola's outer envelope is about 8,500 K, which results in the white hue typical of A-type stars.

[22] Denebola shows a strong infrared excess, indicating there is a circumstellar debris disk of cool dust in orbit around it.

Observations with the Herschel Space Observatory have provided resolved images, which show the disk to be located at a mean radius of 39 astronomical units from the star.

[24] As the Solar System is believed to have formed out of such a disk, Denebola and similar stars such as Vega and Beta Pictoris may be candidate locations for extrasolar planets.

Other stars in this association include Alpha Pictoris, Beta Canis Minoris and the open cluster IC 2391.