Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
60 free Cancer Zodiac Sign trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Cancer zodiac sign trivia quiz covers the fourth sign from three directions. The astrology questions ask about the crab's dates, its Moon rulership and water element, its cardinal modality, its opposite sign, the planet exalted in it, why some astrologers say 'moon children', and the scarab and turtle that stood in for the crab in Egypt and Babylon. The astronomy questions turn to the faint constellation itself: Tarf and Acubens, the two donkey stars, the Beehive Cluster that Galileo resolved into forty stars, the ancient cluster Messier 67, the star with the longest name in the sky, and the planetary system of 55 Cancri with its planets named for Galileo, Brahe and Harriot. The mythology is Heracles' second labour: the giant crab Hera sent to bite him while he fought the Hydra of Lerna, the heel that crushed it and the goddess who set it among the stars. There are also questions on the Tropic of Cancer, Dante's line about the crab, and how the sign is drawn on the cathedrals of Chartres and Amiens. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on each question, so it works for a Cancer birthday, a pub round or a stargazing night. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our Zodiac, Leo and Gemini quizzes for more.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What animal represents the zodiac sign Cancer?
A crab
Some depictions swap in a lobster, crayfish, scarab beetle or turtle, and the Swedish name for the sign literally means crayfish.
Q 02Cancer is which sign in the order of the zodiac?
4th
It follows Gemini and precedes Leo, and the Sun enters it at the northern summer solstice.
Q 03Which celestial body rules the sign of Cancer?
The Moon
Renaissance astrologers linked the sign to the lunar goddesses Luna and Diana for the same reason.
Q 04Cancer belongs to which classical element?
Water
It shares the water trigon with Scorpio and Pisces.
Q 05What is Cancer's modality in astrology?
Cardinal
Cardinal signs begin each season, and Cancer opens summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
Q 06Which sign sits opposite Cancer on the zodiac wheel?
Capricorn
The two also name the Earth's two tropics, the northern and southern limits of the overhead Sun.
Q 07Under the tropical zodiac the Sun is in Cancer from about June 21 until roughly which date?
July 23
Astronomically the Sun does not actually enter the constellation until around July 20 because of precession.
Q 08Cancer spans which degrees of celestial longitude?
90 to 120
Each of the twelve signs takes up exactly 30 degrees of the ecliptic.
Q 09Cancer is one of the six signs of which polarity?
Negative
The even-numbered signs, which make up the earth and water triplicities, are the negative or receptive ones.
Q 10Which planet is traditionally said to be exalted in Cancer?
Jupiter
Exaltation was compared to the dignity of an honoured guest, one step below rulership.
Q 11Because of the word's link to the disease, some astrologers call people born under Cancer what?
Moon children
The nickname comes from the sign's lunar ruler.
Q 12In ancient Egypt the sign of Cancer was conceived as which creature?
A scarab beetle
In Mesopotamia it was a turtle; in each case the animal was seen as pushing the Sun across the sky at the solstice.
Q 13The Swedish name for the sign, 'kraftan', means what?
Crayfish
Dutch and Afrikaans go with 'kreeft' and 'kreef', meaning lobster; a 1488 Latin translation also drew it as a large crayfish.
Q 21Which two constellations flank Cancer along the zodiac?
Gemini and Leo
Lynx lies to the north, Hydra to the south and Canis Minor to the southwest.
Q 22How does Cancer rank for brightness among the zodiac constellations?
It is the dimmest
Only two of its stars are brighter than fourth magnitude, and under city skies it disappears completely.
Q 23What is the brightest star in Cancer?
Tarf
An orange giant about 50 times the Sun's diameter, it shines at only magnitude 3.5.
Q 14What is the sign of Cancer called in Hindu astrology?
Karka
Sanskrit shares an ancestor with Greek, and Karka and Karkata are cousins of the Greek Karkinos.
Q 15The word 'Cancer' comes from an Indo-European root with what meaning?
To scratch
Latin cancer is simply the generic word for crab.
Q 16In Greek myth, the crab attacked Heracles while he was fighting which monster?
The Lernaean Hydra
Hera sent the crab to distract him by nipping at his feet; he crushed it and carried on.
Q 17Which goddess placed the crab among the stars after Heracles killed it?
Hera
She was Heracles' lifelong enemy and rewarded the crab's loyal, if useless, effort; in Roman tellings it is Juno.
Q 18How did Heracles kill the giant crab?
He crushed it under his foot
The crab had been biting his feet with its claws to throw him off balance during the fight.
Q 19The Hydra fight in which the crab appears was which of Heracles' twelve labours?
The second
Eurystheus refused to count it because Heracles had help from his nephew Iolaus in cauterising the necks.
Q 20Which Roman physician translated the Greek 'karkinos' into Latin as 'cancer'?
Celsus
Hippocrates had used karkinos for tumours because their spreading lesions reminded him of a crab.
Q 24The star name Al Tarf translates from Arabic as what?
The end
The IAU formally approved the shortened name Tarf in June 2018.
Q 25What does Acubens, the common name of Alpha Cancri, mean?
The claw
It is actually a quadruple system: two near-identical white stars orbited by a pair of small red dwarfs.
Q 26Delta Cancri holds the record for the longest stellar name, 'Arkushanangarushashutu'. What does it mean?
The southeast star in the Crab
Its everyday name, Asellus Australis, means 'southern donkey', and it points the way to X Cancri, the reddest star in the sky.
Q 27The stars Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis represent what?
Two donkeys
The Greeks and Romans saw them feeding from a manger, the fuzzy cluster between them.
Q 28In myth, which god and his tutor rode the two animals represented by the Aselli into battle against the Titans?
Dionysus and Silenus
The donkeys' braying was said to have terrified the Titans.
Q 29What does 'Praesepe', the Latin name for Messier 44, mean?
Manger
Hipparchus called it Nephelion, 'little cloud', and Aratus called it Achlus, 'little mist'.
Q 30How many stars did Galileo resolve in the Beehive Cluster with his telescope in 1609?
40
Ptolemy had listed it as 'the nebulous mass in the breast of Cancer'; by the 2020s about 1,010 members were known.