This week, the bright star Spica greets the passing moon. The chart shows the view looking south-west from London at 22.15 BST on 3 July 2025.
At 8.3 days old, and with 60% of its visible surface illuminated, the moon will be just past its first quarter (half moon) phase and into its waxing gibbous phase, on the way to becoming full next week.
Spica is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, the maiden. It is the 15th brightest star in the night sky and lies about 250 light-years away from Earth. Although it appears as a single object to even our most advanced telescopes, detailed analysis reveals that Spica is in fact a binary star.
It is composed of two giant stars, separated by about 18m km, that orbit each other once every four days.
One of these component stars has a diameter just under eight times the size of the sun’s diameter and the other is four times the diameter. Together they give out more than 12,000 times the light from our sun.
From the southern hemisphere, the conjunction will appear to be higher in the sky, and therefore a little easier to see.