Capricorn at a glance
- Symbol
- The Sea Goat
- Sun in Capricorn
- About 22 December to 19 January (exact times vary by year)
- Element
- Earth
- Modality
- Cardinal
- Ruled by
- Saturn
- Exaltation
- Mars
- Detriment
- The Moon
- Fall
- Jupiter
- Natural house
- The 10th house
- Opposite sign
- Cancer
Which stars make up Capricorn?
Capricornus is the smallest constellation of the zodiac, a wide faint triangle often described as a smile or a boat. Its stars are dim, so it shows best on a dark late summer night.
At its western tip, sharp eyes can split Algedi into two stars. They only look like a pair; one is about 100 light years away and the other more than five times further.
Where does Capricorn come from?
The sea goat is one of the strangest and most ancient figures in the sky. The Babylonians called it SUHUR.MASH, the goat fish, the emblem of Ea, god of fresh water, wisdom and craft, who rose from the deep to teach humans how to live.
Greek myth explained the fish tail with a panic. When the monster Typhon attacked the gods, Pan leapt into the Nile to escape, and the half of him underwater became a fish while the half above stayed a goat. Another story made Capricornus Amalthea, the goat who nursed the infant Zeus, whose broken horn became the horn of plenty.
Capricorn also named a line on the globe. When the zodiac was set down, the Sun stood here at the December solstice, at its furthest point south, and that latitude became the Tropic of Capricorn. The solstice Sun has since moved into Sagittarius.
c. 1000 BCE
The goat fish
Babylonian star lists name SUHUR.MASH, the goat fish of Ea, god of fresh water and wisdom.
Greek myth
Pan in the river
Fleeing the monster Typhon, Pan dives into the Nile and becomes half goat, half fish.
Greek myth
The horn of plenty
In another story the goat is Amalthea, who nursed the infant Zeus. Her horn becomes the cornucopia.
Antiquity
The tropic
With the Sun in Capricorn at the December solstice, the southern limit of the overhead Sun becomes the Tropic of Capricorn.
c. 150 CE to today
Seasons, not stars
Capricorn still begins at the December solstice. The sea goat's stars now host the Sun from late January to mid February.
How does Capricorn line up with the real sky?
There are three different versions of every sign. The Earth’s axis wobbles like a slowing spinning top, a full circle about every 25,800 years, and that drags the spring equinox west against the stars by about one degree every 72 years.
Western astrology
Tropical: measured from the spring equinox
21 December to 20 January
Vedic astrology
Sidereal: measured from the stars (Lahiri)
14 January to 12 February
Astronomy
The Capricorn constellation (IAU boundaries)
About 20 January to 16 February
Dates of the Sun's passage in 2026, computed by Hali.
Western astrology stays locked to the seasons, Vedic astrology follows the stars, and the two are now 24.2° apart. Hali uses the tropical zodiac because it follows the seasons the signs were named for.
Does science support astrology?
Not as a way to predict personality or events, and controlled studies have found no such effect. We get the sky exactly right and treat the meaning as a language for reflection. Read more in Is astrology scientific?
How often is Capricorn rising?
The share of each day with Capricorn on the Ascendant, and how long it takes to rise, at four latitudes. In London it is the 8th most common of the 12 rising signs.
| Place | Share of the day | Time to rise |
|---|---|---|
| Equator | 8.9% | 129 min |
| Madrid | 8% | 115 min |
| London | 7.4% | 107 min |
| Reykjavík | 5% | 72 min |
The rarest rising sign, city by city
How common is Capricorn?
In US birth records from 1994 to 2014, 7.62% of babies were born under Capricorn, about 76 in every 1,000. That makes Capricorn number 12 of 12, where 1 is the most common.
When is the Moon next in Capricorn?
The Moon is next in Capricorn from Thu 12 Nov 20:27 UTC until Sun 15 Nov 09:24 UTC.
The next new moon in Capricorn is on Thursday 7 January 2027.
Sources and methods
Tropical and sidereal (Lahiri) dates for 2026 computed by Hali; constellation dates approximate, from IAU boundaries. Babylonian names follow the MUL.APIN star compendium.
Dignities follow Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, Book I. Our data is free to use under CC BY 4.0.
Capricorn in your chart
Sun in CapricornMoon in CapricornMercury in CapricornVenus in CapricornMars in CapricornJupiter in CapricornSaturn in CapricornUranus in CapricornNeptune in CapricornPluto in CapricornCapricorn rising
Capricorn with every sign
Capricorn and AriesCapricorn and TaurusCapricorn and GeminiCapricorn and CancerCapricorn and LeoCapricorn and VirgoCapricorn and LibraCapricorn and ScorpioCapricorn and SagittariusCapricorn and CapricornCapricorn and AquariusCapricorn and Pisces