Scorpius

The myth

Scorpius is the scorpion sent to kill Orion the boastful hunter. The gods placed the two on opposite sides of the sky, so the scorpion climbs in the east at the very moment Orion flees below the western horizon. They are never up at the same time, which is genuinely true of the real stars, and the story is only the decoration.

How to find it

Low in the summer sky for the northern hemisphere, and high overhead in the south, Scorpius actually curls like a scorpion, a bright hook of stars tailing off into a raised stinger. At its heart burns Antares, a red supergiant whose name means the rival of Mars.

When the Sun is there

Here is the surprise. By the official star boundaries the Sun spends only about six and a half days a year in front of Scorpius, from around 23 to 29 November in 2026, the shortest stay of the thirteen constellations on its path. The boundary lines drawn in 1930 give the scorpion only a thin slice of the ecliptic, and the Sun then spends 18.3 days crossing the feet of Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer, before it reaches Sagittarius.

The sign Scorpio ran from 23 October to 22 November in 2026, so a Scorpio Sun was in front of Virgo or Libra, never Scorpius. Hali’s figures show the Sun in front of the scorpion only during the sign Sagittarius, for 6.5 of its 29.6 days.

Stars you can find in your chart

By Hali’s 2026 star positions Acrab, the scorpion’s forehead, sits at 3 degrees of the sign Sagittarius and Antares at 10 degrees of Sagittarius. The Sun passes Antares around 2 December each year. Ptolemy gave Antares the nature of Mars with some Jupiter, and astrologers who use fixed stars read a planet on it as intense, brave and quick to fight.

The thirteenth sign question

Ophiuchus comes up every few years as the forgotten thirteenth sign. It is a real constellation the Sun crosses, but the tropical zodiac was never a list of constellations. It is twelve equal slices of the year, so there is no gap for a thirteenth to fill.

Sign and constellation

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