Spica, along with Arcturus and Denebola—or Regulus, depending on the source—forms the Spring Triangle asterism, and, by extension, is also part of the Great Diamond together with the star Cor Caroli.

Other traditional names are Azimech /ˈæzɪmɛk/, from Arabic السماك الأعزل al-simāk al-ʼaʽzal 'the unarmed simāk (of unknown meaning, cf.

[17] Spica is believed to be the star that gave Hipparchus the data that led him to discover the precession of the equinoxes.

[22] The Sun passes a little more than 2° north of Spica around October 16 every year, and the star's heliacal rising occurs about two weeks later.

The changes in the orbital motion of this pair results in a Doppler shift in the absorption lines of their respective spectra, making them a double-lined spectroscopic binary.

Between 1966 and 1970, the Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer was used to observe the pair and to directly measure the orbital characteristics and the angular diameter of the primary, which was found to be (0.90 ± 0.04) × 10−3 arcseconds, and the angular size of the semi-major axis of the orbit was found to be only slightly larger at (1.54 ± 0.05) × 10−3 arcseconds.

This effect causes the apparent magnitude of the star system to vary by 0.03 over an interval that matches the orbital period.

Over time, the mutual tidal interaction of the pair may lead to rotational synchronization and orbit circularization.

[9] The primary is one of the nearest stars to the Sun that has enough mass to end its life in a Type II supernova explosion.

The spectrum shows a radial velocity variation with the same period, indicating that the surface of the star is regularly pulsating outward and then contracting.

[35] Both a rocket and crew capsule designed and under development by Copenhagen Suborbitals, a crowd-funded space program, is named Spica.

Spica aims to make Denmark the first country to launch its own astronaut to space after Russia, the US and China.

In his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Cornelius Agrippa attributes Spica's kabbalistic symbol to Hermes Trismegistus.