Zodiac Trivia
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99 free Zodiac trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free zodiac trivia questions with answers. The zodiac is older than horoscopes and stranger than star signs. This zodiac trivia quiz covers all twelve Western signs, their symbols, elements, modalities and ruling planets, and the myths behind them, from the Nemean lion and the Dioscuri to Ganymede and Astraea. It also covers the astronomy: the ecliptic, the Babylonian 30-degree divisions, MUL.APIN, Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, precession and why the 'first point of Aries' is now in Pisces, and the recurring fuss over Ophiuchus. The Chinese zodiac gets its due too: the Jade Emperor's race, the 60-year cycle and Vietnam's cat. So does the history of horoscopes, from Cicero calling it pseudoscience to R. H. Naylor's 1930 column on the newborn Princess Margaret. Astrology is described here as a tradition, not endorsed as fact. About a third of the questions are for anyone who knows their sign, a third for people who know their rising sign, and the rest for those who can name the star at the scorpion's heart. Every answer is checked against a cited source shown under the question.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'zodiac' comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Of little animals
Zodiac comes from the Greek zōidiakos kyklos, 'circle of little animals': zōidion is the diminutive of zōion, animal, fitting a ring of signs that are mostly beasts or hybrids.
Q 02Which English word comes from the Italian for 'ill-starred', a relic of astrology?
Disaster
Disaster comes from the Italian disastro, 'ill-starred' (dis- plus astro, star): a misfortune was once blamed on an unlucky position of the planets.
Q 03The zodiac and its 360-degree measurement originated with which ancient civilisation?
Babylonian
Babylonian astronomers divided the ecliptic into twelve equal 30° signs in the first millennium BC, and several of their figures, such as the Twins and the Crab, are still in use today.
Q 04What is the ecliptic?
The Sun's apparent yearly path across the sky
The Sun's apparent yearly path across the sky is called the ecliptic because eclipses can happen only along it.
Q 05Because of precession, the March equinox point has moved from Aries into which constellation?
Pisces
Pisces now hosts the March equinox point, so the star signs have slipped out of step with the constellations they are named after.
Q 06The habit of seeing vague, horoscope-style descriptions as personally accurate is named after which American entertainer?
P. T. Barnum
P. T. Barnum gives the Barnum effect its name: in the late 1940s psychologist Bertram Forer handed every student the same profile, lifted from newsstand horoscopes, and they rated it highly accurate.
Q 07Which astronomer of ancient Alexandria wrote the Tetrabiblos, a handbook of astrology?
Ptolemy
Ptolemy wrote the Tetrabiblos, 'four books', as the astrological companion to his Almagest, and astrologers treated it almost as scripture for a thousand years or more.
Q 08The Dendera zodiac, a circular ceiling relief now in the Louvre, comes from which country?
Egypt
The Dendera zodiac was carved about 50 BC in the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, Egypt; removed by the French in 1821, it hangs in the Louvre in Paris.
Q 09Which is the first sign of the zodiac?
Aries
Aries comes first because the Sun enters it at the March equinox, the start of spring in the north and the point from which the zodiac is counted.
Q 10What animal represents Aries?
Ram
Ram is simply what the Latin aries means; Greek myth made it the golden-fleeced ram that carried Phrixus to safety, whose fleece Jason and the Argonauts later sailed to find.
Q 11Which planet rules the second sign, the bull?
Venus
Venus rules the bull, and the constellation has a love story to match: in the usual Greek telling the bull is Zeus in disguise, carrying Europa off across the sea.
Q 12Which three signs are the earth signs?
Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn
Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn: the earth signs sit four apart on the zodiac wheel, so joining them draws a triangle, which is why each group of three is called a triplicity or trigon.
Q 13Gemini is represented by which mythological twins?
Castor and Pollux
Castor and Pollux were inseparable: when mortal Castor was killed, Pollux chose to share his immortality rather than live on without him, and in one version Zeus set them in the sky as Gemini.
Q 21What is the opposite sign of Aquarius?
Leo
Leo sits six signs from Aquarius, exactly half the wheel, so a full moon during Aquarius season, being opposite the Sun, always falls in Leo.
Q 22The water carrier of Aquarius is most often identified with which figure from Greek myth?
Ganymede
Ganymede was a Trojan prince so beautiful that he was carried up to Olympus, by Zeus's eagle or by Zeus in eagle form, to pour wine for the gods; the cupbearer became the sky's water-pourer.
Q 23The astrological symbol for the twelfth sign shows two fish joined by what?
A string
A string, or cord, joins the two fish by their tails; in one telling they are Aphrodite and Eros, who dived into a river as fish to escape the monster Typhon.
Q 14Which heavenly body rules the fourth sign, the crab?
The Moon
The Moon rules the crab because ancient astrologers gave the two great lights the signs of high summer: the lion went to the Sun and the crab, next door, to the Moon.
Q 15In Greek myth, the constellation Leo is a lion killed by which hero?
Heracles
Heracles strangled the Nemean lion as the first of his labours, because no weapon could pierce its hide, and afterwards wore the skin as a cloak.
Q 16Which US First Lady had an astrologer help plan her husband's White House schedule?
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan began consulting astrologer Joan Quigley after the 1981 attempt on her husband's life, and the secret came out in 1988 in a memoir by his ousted chief of staff, Donald Regan.
Q 17Which is the only zodiac sign represented by an inanimate object?
Libra
Libra, the scales, is the lone object, and it was carved out of a neighbour: the Greeks saw its stars as the Scorpion's claws, and its two brightest still have Arabic names meaning southern and northern claw.
Q 18In Greek myth, why does Orion set just as Scorpius rises?
A giant scorpion stung him to death
A giant scorpion stung him to death, in one telling after Orion boasted he could kill every beast on Earth; the two were then set on opposite sides of the sky.
Q 19The black hole at the centre of the Milky Way is named after which zodiac constellation?
Sagittarius
Sagittarius gives its name to Sagittarius A*, which lies in that constellation's direction; astronomers inferred the black hole by watching stars whip around an invisible point there.
Q 20Capricorn is ruled by which planet?
Saturn
Saturn rules Capricorn because ancient astrologers gave the coldest, most distant planet they knew the midwinter signs.
Q 24In Western astrology, which planet traditionally rules both Gemini and Virgo?
Mercury
Mercury rules both Gemini and Virgo as the planet of communication, which is why astrologers blame its 'retrograde' spells, three or four times a year, for garbled messages and travel chaos.
Q 25Which constellation has been proposed as a '13th sign' of the zodiac?
Ophiuchus
Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer, really is crossed by the Sun each year, between the scorpion and the archer; astrology's twelve signs are equal slices of sky, so it never got one.
Q 26Which animal comes last of the twelve in the Chinese zodiac?
Pig
Pig brings up the rear: in the legend of the great race it stopped to eat, then dozed off, and trotted over the finish line after all the others.
Q 27What does it mean to be 'on the cusp' in astrology?
Arriving as the Sun straddles two signs
Arriving as the Sun straddles two signs is possible because the Sun's disc is about half a degree wide; some astrologers then read the newborn as a blend of both signs.
Q 28Which musical opens with a song hailing the dawning of the Age of Aquarius?
Hair
Hair opens with 'Aquarius', an anthem to the astrological new age, though astrologers themselves can't agree when that age begins, or whether it already has.
Q 29Births tend to jump across Chinese communities in the year of which zodiac animal?
Dragon
Dragon years bring a baby bump in places such as Taiwan, because children born then are believed to be blessed with luck and strength.
Q 30Which animal traditionally comes first in the Chinese zodiac?
Rat
The Rat comes first: in the legend of the great race it rode across the river on the Ox's back and leapt ahead at the finish line, beating the Ox to first place.