The Planets

Ten Bodies, Ten Jobs

In astrology, a planet is a function. The Sun is identity, the Moon is emotional need, Mercury is thinking, Venus is affection and taste, Mars is drive, Jupiter is growth, Saturn is structure, and the three outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) describe slower currents of change, imagination and transformation. The sign a planet sits in tells you the style it works in.

Strictly, the Sun and Moon are not planets, but astrologers use the word for all ten bodies out of habit, and so do we. Pluto is now classed as a dwarf planet by astronomers and is still used by astrologers, who treat it as part of the chart.

Personal, Social and Generational

The planets fall into three groups by speed. The personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars) move quickly and change signs often, so they are what make your chart yours. The social planets, Jupiter and Saturn, move at a pace of a year or more per sign and describe how you meet the wider world. The outer planets spend years in each sign, so their sign marks a generation; only their house and their contact with your personal planets make them individual.

That is why a person's Moon sign is a better guide to their temperament than their Neptune sign, even though Neptune sounds more mysterious. Millions of people were born with Neptune in the same sign.

Retrograde Is Perspective, Not Reversal

From time to time a planet appears to move backward through the zodiac. It is an optical effect: as the Earth overtakes a slower planet in its orbit, that planet seems to slide backward against the stars for a while. Astrologers read a retrograde planet as working inward, asking for review more than action. Our Sky Events page explains how each retrograde is read.

Reading a Planet in Practice

To read any planet in your own chart, answer three questions in order. What does this planet do? (That is on its page in this section.) How does the sign it sits in color that job? And in which area of life, meaning which house, does it operate most? Write a sentence for each and join them. It takes about two minutes per planet and is the method professional astrologers use, only faster.