Gemini

The myth

Castor and Pollux were twin brothers, but only one was immortal. When Castor died, Pollux could not bear to be parted from him and begged to give up half of his own immortality so they could stay together. Zeus agreed and set them both in the sky. Their two bright head stars still carry their names.

How to find it

Up and to the left of Orion, look for two bright stars sitting close together. Those are the heads of the twins, Castor and Pollux, with their bodies trailing back toward Orion as two roughly parallel lines of fainter stars. Gemini is best seen on winter and early spring evenings in the northern hemisphere.

When the Sun is there

Hali’s calculations with the official star boundaries put the Sun in front of Gemini from about 21 June to 20 July in 2026, an average of 29.2 days a year. The sign Gemini, by contrast, ran from 21 May to 21 June in 2026. So the Sun meets the stars of the twins almost exactly as it leaves the sign. In 2026 the June solstice fell at 08:25 universal time on 21 June, with the Sun still among the stars of Taurus, and the Sun crossed into Gemini about thirteen hours later. Most people born under the sign Cancer had the Sun in front of Gemini, 29.1 of the sign’s 31.5 days by Hali’s figures.

Stars you can find in your chart

In 2026 Hali’s star positions put Castor at 20 degrees and Pollux at 23 degrees of the sign Cancer. The Sun passes them around 12 and 16 July each year. Astrologers who use fixed stars traditionally read Castor as the clever, wordy twin and Pollux as the fighter, an echo of the myth, where Castor tamed horses and Pollux was a champion boxer.

Why the twins sit on the zodiac

The Sun’s yearly path runs through the feet of the twins, which is why Gemini became one of the twelve zodiac constellations. Planets wander through it too, and in 1781 William Herschel found Uranus near the feet of Gemini, the first planet discovered with a telescope.

Sign and constellation

Your Gemini sign is a season-based slice of the zodiac, not this star pattern. See why your star sign is not a constellation. The Gemini sign guide covers the sign, the Gemini dates page lists when it starts each year, and the real sky tool shows which constellation was really behind your Sun.