47 Fun Facts About Scorpio

Scorpio is which sign in the order of the zodiac?

Scorpio is the 8th of the twelve tropical zodiac signs, counted from Aries, which opens the cycle at the March equinox.

What is the classical ruling planet of Scorpio?

Mars is Scorpio's classical ruler; the traditional scheme gives the red planet two signs, Scorpio and Aries, and a modern co-ruler was added only in the 20th century.

Which body do modern astrologers assign as Scorpio's ruler?

Astrologers kept Pluto in charge even after astronomers demoted it to a dwarf planet in 2006.

Scorpio belongs to which element?

Scorpio is a Water sign, sharing that element with Cancer and Pisces; the three Water signs are the ones astrology links to emotion and intuition.

What is Scorpio's modality?

Scorpio's modality is Fixed, the quality given to the four signs that fall in the middle of a season; Scorpio holds mid-autumn in the northern hemisphere.

Which sign is opposite Scorpio on the zodiac wheel?

Taurus sits directly opposite Scorpio on the zodiac wheel, 180° away, so the Sun occupies Taurus from late April to late May, six months from Scorpio season.

Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun is in Scorpio on average between which dates?

The Sun is in the sign of Scorpio from October 23 to November 21 on average; the boundary shifts by about a day with the leap-year cycle.

For how many days a year is the Sun actually within the IAU boundaries of the constellation Scorpius?

The Sun spends only about 6 days, roughly November 23 to 28, inside the IAU boundaries of Scorpius, because the ecliptic clips just the constellation's northern tip.

Which constellation, the so-called '13th sign', lies on the ecliptic between Scorpius and Sagittarius?

Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer, straddles the ecliptic between Scorpius and Sagittarius and holds the Sun from about November 30 to December 18, yet tropical astrology ignores it.

Which body is traditionally said to be in its 'fall' in Scorpio?

The Moon is in its fall in Scorpio under traditional essential dignities, because its exaltation lies in the opposite sign; Jupiter, by contrast, is exalted in Cancer.

Scorpio belongs to which polarity group?

Negative (feminine) is Scorpio's polarity; the signs alternate positive and negative around the wheel starting with positive Aries, so every even-numbered sign, Scorpio included, is negative or receptive.

Which tarot trump does the Golden Dawn system pair with Scorpio?

Death, trump XIII, is the tarot card the Golden Dawn correspondences assign to Scorpio; The Devil goes to Capricorn and Strength to Leo.

Which two constellations flank Scorpius in the zodiac?

Libra and Sagittarius flank Scorpius on the ecliptic, Libra to the west and Sagittarius to the east, so the Sun moves from the scales into the scorpion and on to the archer.

What colour does Antares, the brightest star in Scorpius, appear to the naked eye?

Antares looks distinctly Reddish to the naked eye because it is a cool red supergiant with a surface temperature near 3,600 K, far below the Sun's 5,800 K.

What does the name Antares mean?

Rival of Ares (Mars) is the meaning of Antares, from the Greek anti-Ares, because the star's hue so closely matches the planet that the two are easily confused when near each other.

Roughly how far away is Antares?

Antares lies about 550 light-years away, roughly 170 parsecs, as the brightest member of the Scorpius–Centaurus association, the nearest OB association to the Sun.

If Antares replaced the Sun, roughly how far out would its surface extend?

Into the asteroid belt is how far Antares would reach: with a radius near 680 times the Sun's, about 3 AU, its surface would lie beyond the fourth planet's orbit but short of Jupiter's.

Antares is actually a binary; its faint companion is what kind of object?

A hot main-sequence star: Antares B is a blue-white B-type dwarf of magnitude 5.5, first spotted during a lunar occultation in 1819 and roughly 2.5 arcseconds from the supergiant.

Which planet last passed in front of Antares, in 525 BC, and will next do so in 2400?

Venus last occulted Antares in 525 BC and will next do so in 2400; the star sits about 4.6° south of the ecliptic, so planetary occultations of it are rare.

Which two stars at the tip of the scorpion's tail both have names meaning 'sting'?

Shaula and Lesath, at the tip of the stinger, both take their names from Arabic words for the scorpion's sting; Shaula, at magnitude 1.6, is the brighter of the pair.

What nickname do the close pair of tail-tip stars Lambda and Upsilon Scorpii share?

The Cat's Eyes is the nickname for Lambda and Upsilon Scorpii, which sit less than a degree apart at the tip of the stinger and shine at magnitudes 1.6 and 2.7.

The bright stars of Scorpius are said to trace what everyday object?

A longshoreman's hook is the everyday object the bright stars of Scorpius are compared with, the curve of the tail forming the hook below Antares and the claws.

What does the name of Delta Scorpii, Dschubba, mean?

The forehead is the meaning of Dschubba, from the Arabic al-jabhah, marking the front of the scorpion's head; the star surprised astronomers by brightening sharply in mid-2000.

U Scorpii holds what record among stellar explosions?

U Scorpii holds the record 'Fastest known recurrent nova': it erupted in 1979, 1987, 1999, 2010 and 2022, and each outburst faded by several magnitudes within days.

AH Scorpii, one of the largest stars known, is roughly how many times the Sun's size?

AH Scorpii's radius is about 1,400 times the Sun's, among the largest measured; placed at the Sun it would reach well past Jupiter's orbit.

Which globular cluster near Antares was the first to have its individual stars resolved?

Messier 4, about 1.3° west of Antares, was resolved into stars by Charles Messier in 1764; at roughly 6,000 light-years it is among the nearest globular clusters.

M6 in Scorpius is nicknamed after which creature?

A butterfly is the creature M6 evokes: the open cluster's stars fan out like wings, hence the Butterfly Cluster, with the orange giant BM Scorpii its brightest member.

Which object in Scorpius, M7, is named after the ancient astronomer who recorded it?

The Ptolemy Cluster is M7, a bright open cluster near the scorpion's stinger that Ptolemy described around AD 130 as a nebulous patch following the sting.

NGC 6302 in Scorpius, a bipolar cloud of gas shed by a dying star, is known by which insect nickname?

The Bug Nebula, NGC 6302, hides one of the hottest known central stars, a white dwarf at over 200,000 K, behind a dense dusty torus that pinches the gas into two lobes.

In Greek myth, the scorpion was sent to kill which boastful hunter?

That is why Orion sets in the west as Scorpius rises in the east, forever fleeing.

In one version, which goddess and her mother sent the scorpion after the hunter boasted he would kill every animal?

Artemis and Leto, the huntress and her mother, sent the scorpion in this version after the hunter vowed to slay every animal on Earth; Zeus then set both combatants among the stars.

In Greek myth, the celestial scorpion frightened the Sun's horses while they were driven by which youth?

Phaethon lost control of his father Helios' chariot and Zeus had to strike him down.

What does the Babylonian name for Scorpius, MUL.GIR.TAB, literally mean?

The creature with a burning sting is the literal reading of MUL.GIR.TAB, the Babylonian name for the scorpion constellation, which is listed in the MUL.APIN star compendium.

In Hawaii, Scorpius is known as the fishhook of which demigod?

Maui, the demigod, owns the fishhook Hawaiians see in Scorpius; the hook, Manaiakalani, is the one he used to haul islands up from the sea.

The Javanese call Scorpius Kalapa Doyong, meaning what?

Leaning coconut tree is the meaning of Kalapa Doyong, the Javanese name for Scorpius, given for the curve of the star pattern; a second Javanese name, Banyakangrem, means the brooded swan.

On the flag of Brazil, Scorpius represents which region of the country?

The Northeast is the region the Scorpius stars mark on Brazil's flag: Antares stands for Piauí, and the scorpion's other seven stars for Maranhão, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas and Sergipe.

Which Egyptian goddess, shown with a scorpion on her head, protected against venomous stings?

Serket, the scorpion goddess, wore a scorpion on her head and was invoked against venomous stings; her gilded statue is one of the four goddesses guarding Tutankhamun's canopic shrine.

Real scorpions are found on every continent except which?

Antarctica is the only continent without scorpions; they range from the Himalayas to a naturalised colony of Euscorpius flavicaudis living in the dockyard walls at Sheerness in Kent.

Roughly how many of the 2,500-plus scorpion species have venom capable of killing a human?

About 25 scorpion species, fewer than one percent of the total, carry venom that can kill a person; the deadliest belong to the family Buthidae, such as the deathstalker.

Under what kind of light does a scorpion's exoskeleton glow?

Ultraviolet light makes a scorpion's cuticle fluoresce blue-green, thanks to compounds such as beta-carboline in its outer layer, which is why collectors hunt them at night with UV torches.

Scorpions first appear in the fossil record in which geological period?

Silurian rocks hold the oldest scorpions: Dolichophonus loudonensis, from what is now Scotland, lived about 430 million years ago.

Which gemstone is the November birthstone, covering most of Scorpio season?

Topaz is November's birthstone, sharing the month with citrine; orange precious topaz is Utah's state gem and blue topaz is the state gem of Texas.

Which Hindu lunar mansion (nakshatra) is NOT one of the three that correspond to Scorpius?

Rohini is the nakshatra marked by Aldebaran, on the opposite side of the sky from the scorpion; Anuradha, Jyeshtha and Mula are the three that span Scorpius.

How were the stars of neighbouring Libra regarded in Ancient Greek times?

As the scorpion's claws is how the Greeks saw Libra's stars, calling them Chelai, the Claws; the names Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamali preserve the Arabic for southern and northern claw.

Scorpius was one of how many constellations catalogued by Ptolemy in the second century?

48 is the number of constellations in Ptolemy's Almagest, compiled around AD 150, and Scorpius is among them; the modern IAU list reached 88 in 1922.

What animal-themed nickname does the star-forming region NGC 6334 in Scorpius carry?

The Cat's Paw is NGC 6334's nickname, from the pad-and-toes pattern of its glowing red gas; the emission nebula lies about 5,500 light-years away and is busy forming massive stars.

What feature distinguishes Scorpio's glyph from the similar M-shaped glyph of Virgo?

A barbed tail arrow distinguishes Scorpio's glyph from Virgo's: both are built on an M-like shape, but Scorpio's final stroke turns outward into a pointed stinger.