46 Fun Facts About Libra

Which abbreviation for a unit of weight comes from the Latin word libra?

lb is short for libra, the Roman pound, so the zodiac's balance hides in every weight written in pounds; the Romans' full phrase, libra pondo, also gave English the word pound itself.

Libra is unique among the zodiac signs because it is the only one represented by what?

An inanimate object stands for Libra alone; every other sign is a living creature or a human figure, though old star lore soon gave the pans an owner, a goddess of justice holding them aloft.

Libra, the seventh sign, is paired with the seventh house of a horoscope, which governs what?

Marriage and partnerships fill the seventh house, which begins at the descendant, the point of the zodiac setting in the west at birth, directly opposite the ascendant that stands for the self.

Which planet rules Libra?

Venus rules Libra as well as Taurus, its two domiciles; the planet of harmony suits the sign of fairness and balance.

Libra belongs to which element?

Air signs were classed as hot and moist in the old scheme of four humours, the sanguine temperament, which is why Libra gets its sociable, easy-going reputation.

What is Libra's modality?

Cardinal signs begin the seasons; Libra starts autumn in the northern hemisphere.

Which sign is opposite Libra on the zodiac wheel?

The two mark the equinoxes: Aries the spring one and Libra the autumn one.

Which planet is said to be exalted in Libra?

Saturn is exalted in Libra in traditional doctrine, the planet of judgement finding its best expression in the sign of fairness; the Sun, by contrast, is in its 'fall' there.

The Sun is in the sign Libra between roughly which dates?

September 24 to October 22 sits within a day or two of the standard lists, which differ because the sign opens at the autumn equinox, whose date shifts slightly from year to year.

On the dates horoscopes give to Libra, the Sun is actually in front of which constellation?

Virgo holds the Sun from about September 16 to October 30, so people called Libras were in fact born with it there; the Sun reaches Libra's own stars only on October 31 and crosses them in about three weeks.

The scales of Libra are often linked to those held by which Greek personification of divine law?

Themis, a Titan and Zeus's second wife, personified divine law and order; courthouse statues of Lady Justice, scales in hand, are still often called by her name.

Which daughter of Zeus, one of the Horae, was the Greek personification of justice?

Dike, one of the Horae with her sisters Eirene and Eunomia, personified human justice; Greek poets told of her leaving the earth in disgust at mankind's wickedness to shine among the stars.

Justice was one of four virtues honoured on a golden shield the Senate gave to which Roman emperor?

Augustus boasted of the shield in his own account of his reign: it hung in the Senate house and praised his valour, clemency, justice and piety.

Weighing a dead person's heart against a feather was which ancient culture's judgement rite?

Egypt: in the Book of the Dead the jackal-headed Anubis weighs the heart against the feather of Ma'at, and a heavy heart is eaten by the monster Ammit.

Which now-familiar feature of Lady Justice was still a novelty when a Bern fountain statue wore one in 1543?

A blindfold was a novelty on Hans Gieng's 1543 Justice in Bern, whose sword and scales were already traditional; only later did the covered eyes become standard, read as equality before the law.

Libra belongs to the zodiac, a word that comes from the Greek for a circle of what?

Animals: the Greeks named the band zodiakos kyklos because most of its figures are creatures, and the same root, zoion, gives English the word zoo.

According to the Roman writer Manilius, which professionals are born under Libra?

Judges, Manilius wrote in his Astronomica, are born under Libra: its native will weigh life and death, give the world its laws and make cities and kingdoms tremble at his nod.

The Moon was said to be in Libra at the founding of which city?

Rome: the astrologer Lucius Tarutius, a friend of Cicero, cast the city's horoscope and put the Moon in Libra at its founding; the poet Manilius later called Libra Italy's own sign.

What does the name of Alpha Librae, Zubenelgenubi, mean in Arabic?

The southern claw is what the Arabic name Zubenelgenubi means, a relic of the days when the Greeks drew these stars as part of the creature next door, long before they became a balance.

Which Greek letter is carried by Zubeneschamali, the star in Libra that outshines its Alpha?

Beta Librae shines at magnitude 2.6 against Alpha's 2.75, because the Greek letters, handed out centuries ago, follow brightness only roughly.

Libra's brightest star is often described as showing what unusual tint?

Green is the tint many observers have reported, although a star this hot should look blue-white; others see plain white, and no one has explained the disagreement.

Which red star did Eratosthenes say Libra's brightest star once outshone?

Ptolemy later called the two equal, so either Antares brightened or the Libra star is slightly variable.

Traditionally, which two stars represent the beam of the scales, with Gamma and Sigma as the pans?

Alpha and Beta Librae mark the beam, with Gamma and Sigma as the pans; the pair only look matched, since Beta lies more than twice as far from us as Alpha.

Sigma Librae's proper name, Brachium, is the Latin word for which part of the body?

Arm is the meaning of Brachium, the root of the anatomical word brachial; the star was long labelled as part of the constellation next door before astronomers handed it to Libra.

What makes the star Delta Librae fade by a full magnitude every two days and eight hours?

A companion star eclipses it, and that fainter star has spilled so much of its gas onto the brighter one that it is now the lighter of the two.

Which red dwarf in Libra generated some of the first claims of potentially habitable exoplanets?

Gliese 581, a red dwarf in Libra, made headlines from 2007 with planets 'c', 'd' and 'g' touted as potentially habitable; 'c' proved too hot and 'd' and 'g' were later dismissed as stellar noise.

How far away is the red dwarf that hosts Libra's best-known planetary system?

20.5 light-years is close enough that 501 messages from the public, beamed at the system by a radio telescope in Ukraine in 2008, should arrive in 2029.

The disputed planet 'g' in Libra's red-dwarf system was nicknamed what by one of its discoverers?

Zarmina's World was Steven Vogt's name for the planet, after his wife; he put the chances of life there at '100 percent', yet other teams could not find the planet at all.

When it was found in 2009, planet 'e' of Libra's red-dwarf system held what record?

Least massive exoplanet around a normal star was the title planet 'e' took in April 2009, at about 1.9 Earth masses; the same announcement put its neighbour 'd' in the habitable zone, a claim that later unravelled.

Which biblical figure gives the ancient star HD 140283 its nickname?

Methuselah, the Genesis patriarch said to have lived 969 years, lends his name to HD 140283, a star so poor in heavy elements that it must have formed before generations of stars had enriched the galaxy.

The 2013 Hubble-based estimate for HD 140283's age was about how many billion years?

About 14.5 billion years (14.46 give or take 0.8) was the 2013 Hubble-based figure, which awkwardly exceeded the 13.8-billion-year age of the universe, though the error bars overlapped.

What kind of deep-sky object is NGC 5897 in the constellation Libra?

A globular cluster, and an unusually loose one: NGC 5897's stars are spread so thinly, even at its centre, that it ranks near the bottom of the 12-step scale for how tightly such clusters are packed.

Which sign shares its element with Libra and Gemini, despite carrying a watery symbol?

Aquarius, the water-bearer, belongs with Libra and Gemini all the same: the four elements repeat in order round the zodiac, so signs four places apart always share one.

Which Roman poet pictured the Scorpion pulling in its pincers to make room in the sky for Caesar?

Virgil opens his farming poem, the Georgics, by offering the young Caesar a place among the stars, where the Scorpion has already drawn in its pincers and left him more than a fair share of sky.

What carried the autumn equinox point out of the constellation Libra long ago?

Precession of Earth's axis, a wobble lasting about 26,000 years, slowly slides the equinoxes along the zodiac; the autumn one left Libra long ago, yet is still called the First Point of Libra.

Don DeLillo's 1988 novel Libra retells the life of which American assassin?

Lee Harvey Oswald was born on 18 October 1939, a Libra, and the novel takes its title from his star sign; it blends the record of his life with an invented CIA plot against Kennedy.

Although the Sun sign falls in autumn, the constellation Libra is best seen in the evening during which month?

June is when Libra stands highest around 9 pm; the Sun itself does not reach the constellation's own stars until the end of October, after the Libra birthday season is over.

Most Libras are born in October, which gives them which traditional birthstone?

Opal is October's traditional birthstone, joined by tourmaline on modern lists; Libras born in the last week of September fall under sapphire instead.

The Roman libra was split into twelve unciae, a word that gave English 'ounce' and which unit of length?

Inch comes from uncia, 'a twelfth part', the same word that became ounce: the Romans used it for a twelfth of a foot as well as a twelfth of a libra.

Which two constellations flank Libra in the zodiac?

Virgo and Scorpius flank Libra, and the new scales were soon tied to the first of them, drawn at the feet of the maiden taken for the goddess of justice.

The Titan goddess often linked with Libra's scales was one of twelve children of which primordial pair?

Gaia and Uranus, Earth and Sky, were the parents of the twelve Titans, the justice goddess among them; she was said to have held the Oracle of Delphi before Apollo.

In traditional zodiacal body lore, which part of the body does Libra rule?

The kidneys and lower back fall to Libra in astrological medicine; the 'zodiac man' maps the twelve signs down the body from head to feet, and doctors once timed bloodletting by it.

What does Zubenelakrab, the traditional name of Gamma Librae, mean?

The scorpion's claw, from Arabic al-zubana al-aqrab, is the meaning of Zubenelakrab, Gamma Librae, an orange giant of magnitude 3.9 that once counted as part of the neighbouring creature.

Which tech company announced a digital currency called Libra in 2019?

Facebook unveiled Libra in mid-2019 with Visa and Mastercard among its backers; regulators pushed back, the project was renamed Diem in 2020, and it never launched.

Which zodiac, used in Hindu astrology, places the Sun in Libra from mid-October to mid-November?

Sidereal astrology measures the signs against the stars themselves, so its Libra now runs about three weeks behind the Western one, which stays pinned to the September equinox.

Which planet, ruler of the sign directly opposite, is said to be in 'detriment' in Libra?

Mars is in detriment in Libra because astrologers count a planet weakest in the sign facing its own home, the reverse of the strength it enjoys where it rules.