Libra

The story

Libra is the odd one out of the zodiac, a set of scales rather than a creature or a person. Its stars were once counted as the claws of the scorpion next door, and their old names still say so. Later cultures reimagined them as the scales of justice, balanced in the hands of Virgo the maiden beside them.

How to find it

Libra is faint. Look just to the upper right of the bright red star Antares in Scorpius for a lopsided four-star box. Its brightest star, Zubeneschamali, is one of the very few stars that some careful observers have described as looking faintly green. Early summer evenings are the best time from the northern hemisphere.

When the Sun is there

Hali’s calculations with the official star boundaries put the Sun in front of Libra from about 30 October to 23 November in 2026, an average of 23.1 days a year. In 2026 the sign Libra ran from 23 September to 23 October, and for that whole stretch the Sun was in front of Virgo, not Libra. People born under the sign Scorpio had the Sun among Libra’s stars for 22.2 of their sign’s 29.9 days by Hali’s figures.

Why the scales

The Babylonians already called these stars the scales, the Greeks mostly knew them as the claws, and Roman writers made Libra the standard name. A popular explanation for the scales is balance. In the first millennium BCE the September equinox, when day and night are equal, fell among or close to these stars. The sign Libra still begins at that equinox, though the stars have since slipped away from it.

Stars you can find in your chart

By Hali’s 2026 star positions, Zubenelgenubi, the southern claw, sits at 15 degrees of the sign Scorpio and Zubeneschamali, the northern claw, at 19 degrees of Scorpio. The Sun passes them around 7 and 12 November. So the scales themselves now sit in the sign of the scorpion, a nice echo of where they started.

Sign and constellation

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