[1] Due to the effects of precession, the autumn equinox point lies within the boundaries of Virgo very close to β Virginis.

Its outer arms have a high number of Cepheid variables, which are used as standard candles to determine astronomical distances.

Because of this, astronomers used several Cepheid variables in NGC 4639 to calibrate type Ia supernovae as standard candles for more distant galaxies.

A Hickson Compact Group, HCG 62 is at a distance of 200 Mly from Earth (redshift 0.0137) and possesses a large central elliptical galaxy.

It has a heterogeneous halo of extremely hot gas, posited to be due to the active galactic nucleus at the core of the central elliptical galaxy.

It is a major radio source, partially due to its jet of electrons being flung out of the galaxy by its central supermassive black hole.

Astronomers have surmised that the speed of the gas clouds orbiting the core (approximately 400 km/s) indicates the presence of an object with a mass 300 million times that of the sun, which is most likely a black hole.

It is surrounded by large, bright globular clusters and has a very prominent dust lane made up of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

In the Babylonian MUL.APIN (c. 10th century BC), part of this constellation was known as "The Furrow", representing the goddess Shala and her ear of grain.

One star in this constellation, Spica, retains this tradition as it is Latin for "ear of grain", one of the major products of the Mesopotamian furrow.

Another figure who is associated with the constellation Virgo was the spring goddess Persephone,[12][13][14][15] the daughter of Zeus and Demeter who had married Hades and resided in the Underworld.

In the Poeticon Astronomicon by Hyginus (1st century BC), Parthenos (Παρθένος) is the daughter of Apollo and Chrysothemis, who died a maiden and was placed among the stars as the constellation.

[16] Diodorus Siculus has an alternative account, according to which Parthenos was the daughter of Staphylus and Chrysothemis, sister of Rhoeo and Molpadia (Hemithea).