Calle Estrella Denébola

The street bears the name of a star. Denebola is the second brightest in the constellation Leo, behind Regulus, and marks the far end of the figure, where the lion’s tail flicks across the sky. Hence its name: from the Arabic dhanab al-asad, “the lion’s tail.” It shines white some thirty-six light-years away and spins on itself at more than a hundred kilometers per second at its equator. The name fits its place in Madrid. The street lies at the southern end of Delicias, beside Enrique Tierno Galván park, where the city’s Planetarium stands. The streets of that area were christened looking to the heavens, and so the signs here read like a star chart rather than a calendar of saints or worthies. It is a short street, of quiet layout. Whoever walks it at night and looks up in spring can search for Denebola itself overhead: with Arcturus and Spica it forms the so-called Spring Triangle.