Sagittarius

Sagittarius at a glance

Symbol

The Archer

Sun in Sagittarius

About 22 November to 21 December (exact times vary by year)

Element

Fire

Modality

Mutable

Ruled by

Jupiter

Exaltation

None in traditional astrology

Detriment

Mercury

Fall

None in traditional astrology

Natural house

The 9th house

Opposite sign

Gemini

Which stars make up Sagittarius?

Most people today see a teapot here rather than an archer, eight stars forming a lid, a handle and a spout. On a dark summer night the Milky Way rises from the spout like steam.

That steam is the centre of our galaxy. About 26,000 light years beyond these stars sits Sagittarius A*, a black hole about four million times the mass of the Sun, photographed for the first time in 2022.

Where does Sagittarius come from?

The oldest version of the archer is Babylonian and far stranger than a centaur. Pabilsag appears on boundary stones from around 1100 BCE as a winged centaur with two heads, one human and one a snarling dog, and a scorpion’s tail, drawing a bow.

The Greek astronomer Eratosthenes identified the archer as Crotus, a satyr and son of Pan who invented archery and lived among the Muses, applauding their songs so loudly that he taught people to clap. Later writers merged him with the centaurs, and the half horse archer stuck.

Look at where the arrow points. The archer aims straight at Antares, the red heart of the scorpion next door, as if guarding the sky from it.

How does Sagittarius 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 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.

How often is Sagittarius rising?

The share of each day with Sagittarius on the Ascendant, and how long it takes to rise, at four latitudes. In London it is the 5th most common of the 12 rising signs.

Place	Share of the day	Time to rise
Equator	9.2%	133 min
Madrid	10.1%	146 min
London	10.7%	154 min
Reykjavík	12.8%	185 min

Find your rising sign

The rarest rising sign, city by city

How common is Sagittarius?

In US birth records from 1994 to 2014, 7.93% of babies were born under Sagittarius, about 79 in every 1,000. That makes Sagittarius number 11 of 12, where 1 is the most common.

See all 12 signs ranked

When is the Moon next in Sagittarius?

The Moon is next in Sagittarius from Tue 10 Nov 08:35 UTC until Thu 12 Nov 20:27 UTC.

The next new moon in Sagittarius is on Wednesday 9 December 2026.

Where is the Moon today?

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.