59 Fun Facts About Aquarius

Which symbol stands for Aquarius in horoscopes and on star charts?

Two wavy lines. They are usually read as ripples of the water that the figure of Aquarius, Latin for 'water-carrier', pours out across the sky.

Aquarius is eleventh in the zodiac, which starts each spring with what sign?

Aries. Astrologers count the signs from the March equinox, the first day of northern spring, so every list of them opens with Aries and reaches Aquarius second to last.

Despite its name and its jar, Aquarius belongs to which of the four elements?

Air. The four elements repeat through the zodiac in a set order (fire, earth, air, water), so the eleventh sign lands on air, whatever its figure is pouring.

Aquarius only carries water; which of these signs truly belongs to the water element?

Scorpio. Two other signs share its water element; each element claims every fourth sign, so the trio fall four months apart around the year.

Which planet is Aquarius's ruler in modern astrology?

Uranus. It was unknown as a planet until William Herschel spotted it by telescope in 1781; modern astrologers later moved Aquarius to it from the sign's ancient ruler.

In astrology, which modality, the quality given to mid-season signs, does Aquarius have?

Fixed. The modalities track a sign's place in its season: cardinal signs open one, while fixed signs such as Aquarius hold the settled middle, here midwinter in the north.

Which sign is opposite Aquarius on the zodiac wheel?

Leo. The Sun is said to rule Leo, so astrologers call it 'in detriment', at its weakest, while it crosses the opposite sign in the depth of northern winter.

Under the tropical zodiac the Sun is in Aquarius between roughly which dates?

January 21 to February 19. Calendars differ by a day, and many print January 20 to February 18, because the Sun reaches the sign at a slightly different moment each year.

While horoscopes place the Sun in Aquarius, it actually spends the first weeks of that season in which constellation?

Capricornus. Earth's slow wobble has slid the constellations about a month out of step with the signs since the zodiac was drawn up, so the Sun only reaches the stars of Aquarius in mid-February.

Astrologers pair Aquarius with the eleventh house of a birth chart, which governs what part of life?

Friendships and groups. The twelve houses are matched to the signs in order, so the eleventh falls to Aquarius; astrologers also read a person's hopes and wishes there.

Which name does Hindu astrology give Aquarius, a word shared with the world's largest pilgrimage gathering?

Kumbha. The Sanskrit word means 'water pot', which is why India's Kumbh Mela, the pilgrimage where millions bathe in sacred rivers, is the 'festival of the sacred pitcher'.

Roughly how long does an astrological age, such as the Age of Aquarius, last?

About 2,160 years. Earth's axis takes roughly 26,000 years to trace one slow wobble, and astrologers split that circuit into twelve equal ages, one for each constellation of the zodiac.

Which age does the Age of Aquarius follow, since astrological ages run backwards through the zodiac?

The Age of Pisces. Each age is named for the constellation behind the Sun at the March equinox, and that point creeps backwards through the zodiac, out of Pisces and toward Aquarius.

Which 1967 musical opened with a song declaring 'the dawning of the Age of Aquarius'?

Hair. The rock musical's opening number helped carry the phrase 'Age of Aquarius' out of astrology books and into everyday speech, where it became shorthand for the hippie era.

The Sun passes through Aquarius early in the year, hiding its stars; in which season do northern evenings show them best?

Autumn. A constellation is washed out by daylight while the Sun crosses it, so the stars of Aquarius return to the evening sky months later and stand highest around October.

Which ancient scholar's list of 48 constellations includes Aquarius?

Ptolemy. His Almagest set out 48 star figures that astronomers never dropped: all still appear on today's official sky map, except a giant ship that was later split into three.

The two brightest stars of Aquarius look modest only because they lie over 500 light-years away; what are they?

Yellow supergiants. Each began as a hot blue star several times the Sun's mass, then swelled and cooled; the brighter now pours out more than 2,000 times the Sun's light.

Which Apollo mission's lunar module, named Aquarius, served its crew as a lifeboat after an explosion in space?

Apollo 13. With their command ship crippled, three astronauts lived for about four days in Aquarius, a lander built to keep two men alive for two days on the Moon.

Old star maps show the stream poured by Aquarius ending at which bright star in the Southern Fish?

Fomalhaut. Ancient astronomers counted it twice, as the end of the stream and as the mouth of the fish that drinks it; modern borders give the star to the Southern Fish alone.

As a zodiac constellation, Aquarius lies along which line, the Sun's yearly path across the sky?

The ecliptic. It is named for eclipses, which can happen only when the Moon crosses this line; the Moon and planets keep close to it, so they too pass through Aquarius.

The ultracool dwarf TRAPPIST-1 made headlines in 2017 for having how many Earth-sized planets?

Seven. The find made TRAPPIST-1 the most closely studied planetary system beyond our own, and the James Webb Space Telescope is now checking its worlds for atmospheres.

The telescope that found TRAPPIST-1's planets has a name honouring the monastery beers of which country?

Belgium. The University of Liège team bent 'Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope' into TRAPPIST as a salute to the country's famous abbey ales.

In 1998 Gliese 876 in Aquarius became the first of which small, dim, common type of star found with a planet?

Red dwarf. Its giant planet, found circling a star with a third of the Sun's mass, was then the nearest known beyond the Solar System and a puzzle for theories of how planets form.

Which nebula in Aquarius, among the nearest of its kind to Earth, has been nicknamed the 'Eye of God'?

The Helix Nebula. Its rings are the outer layers thrown off by a dying Sun-like star and lit by the hot core left behind, so it shows what the Sun itself will one day become.

Lord Rosse saw handle-like lobes on either side of NGC 7009 in Aquarius and named the nebula after which planet?

Saturn. The faint lobes on either side reminded him of the planet's rings; the nebula itself had been discovered by William Herschel in 1782.

M73 in Aquarius was long listed as a star cluster, but what really links its four stars?

Chance alignment. Spectra showed that its stars lie at very different distances and move in different directions, so the 'cluster' logged in 1780 is only a pattern as seen from Earth.

The galaxy NGC 7252 in Aquarius is nicknamed 'Atoms for Peace' after a speech by which US president?

Dwight D. Eisenhower. His 1953 speech urged peaceful uses of nuclear power, and the name stuck to the galaxy because its looping trails of stars resemble a textbook atom, with electrons circling a nucleus.

The Eta Aquariid meteors that streak from Aquarius each May are dust shed by which comet?

Halley's Comet. Earth crosses its dust trail twice a year, so the same comet also feeds October's Orionids, though the comet itself returns only about every 76 years.

Aquarius holds three objects catalogued by which French comet hunter?

Charles Messier. He listed these fuzzy objects only to stop comet hunters like himself wasting time on them, yet the nuisance list became one of the best-known catalogues of sights in the sky.

The Sun crosses thirteen constellations each year, Aquarius among them; which one has no zodiac sign of its own?

Ophiuchus. The Sun spends about eighteen days in the Serpent Bearer each year, more than twice as long as it spends in neighbouring Scorpius, which does have a sign.

Babylonians saw Aquarius as which god of fresh water, often shown holding an overflowing vase?

Ea (Enki). Babylonian star lists call his figure 'the Great One'; in the Mesopotamian deluge stories he is the god who defies the others and warns one man to build a boat.

Medieval doctors mapped the twelve signs onto the body from head to feet in zodiac order; which part fell to Aquarius?

The ankles. The scheme runs down the body sign by sign, so the last sign takes the feet and Aquarius the part just above; horoscope guides still list ankles and shins as its territory.

Egyptians tied Aquarius to their god Hapi, who was credited each year with which event?

The Nile flooded. Each summer the river spread a fresh layer of silt over its banks, which is what let crops grow in a desert country, so Egypt's water-pourer was a giver of life.

In Greek myth, Aquarius is most often identified with which beautiful youth carried off by Zeus?

Ganymede. Homer calls him the loveliest of mortals; Zeus set him to pour nectar for the gods on Olympus, to the lasting annoyance of his wife Hera.

In the usual telling, Zeus took which form to seize the youth who became Aquarius?

An eagle. Whether the bird was Zeus himself or only his messenger depends on the teller; either way it is honoured next door in the sky as the constellation Aquila.

In Greek myth, the youth who became Aquarius was a prince of which city, named after his father?

Troy. His father, King Tros, gave the city its name; in Homer's telling Zeus paid Tros for the boy with a team of the finest horses under the sun.

Which naturalist, an Aquarius, was born on the very same day in 1809 as Abraham Lincoln?

Charles Darwin. He held back his theory of evolution for some twenty years, gathering evidence, and went public only after a younger naturalist wrote to him with the same idea.

In most tellings, the youth behind Aquarius took over from which goddess as cupbearer to the gods?

Hebe. The goddess of youth had poured nectar and ambrosia for the Olympians; classical writers say she gave the post up on marrying Heracles, the hero raised to godhood.

The Solar System's largest moon is named after the cupbearer of Greek myth; which planet does it orbit?

Jupiter. Galileo spotted the moon in 1610 with three companions, the first moons ever seen circling another planet, and the sight helped overturn the idea that everything orbits Earth.

Aquarius is also linked with which son of Prometheus, who survived a great flood with his wife Pyrrha?

Deucalion. Once the waters fell, he and Pyrrha repopulated the world by throwing stones over their shoulders: his turned into men and hers into women.

Cecrops, a mythical king linked to Aquarius for offering the gods water instead of wine, ruled which city?

Athens. Cecrops was pictured as a man above the waist and a serpent below, and when Athena planted her olive tree to claim the city from Poseidon she called on him as her witness.

The word zodiac, for the band that holds Aquarius, comes from Greek for a circle of what?

Little animals. Most of the twelve signs are beasts, a bull, a crab and a pair of fish among them, so the Greeks named the whole band after them, though it also holds human figures such as Aquarius.

Aquarius lies in 'the Sea', a region of water-themed constellations that also includes which of these?

Cetus. Star maps call it the whale, but the Greeks pictured a sea monster: the beast sent to devour Andromeda until Perseus arrived.

Which gemstone is the February birthstone, covering most of Aquarius season?

Amethyst. Its Greek name means 'not drunk': the ancients carved cups from the purple stone and wore it in the belief that it kept a drinker sober.

Aquarius lies between which two constellations of the zodiac?

Capricornus and Pisces. Though Aquarius is the tenth-largest constellation in the sky, it is hard to pick out between them: none of its stars is brighter than third magnitude.

Which 1969 music festival was billed as 'An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music'?

Woodstock. It was planned to turn a profit, but the fences and ticket booths were not ready when nearly half a million people arrived, so the organisers declared it a free concert.

Which vocal group took the medley 'Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In' to number one in America in 1969?

The 5th Dimension. A lost wallet led to it: the man who returned singer Billy Davis Jr.'s wallet from a New York cab worked on the stage show and invited the group to see it.

Sadalsuud is the brightest of several stars in Aquarius with Arabic 'luck' names; what does its name mean?

Luck of lucks. The Arabic is also rendered 'luckiest of the lucky', and the name fits: though labelled Beta, the star narrowly outshines Alpha, whose own name means 'luck of the king'.

Aquarius Reef Base, the undersea laboratory where NASA trains astronauts, lies off the coast of which US state?

Florida. The lab sits about 60 feet down beside a coral reef in the Keys, and NASA sends crews to live in it because the seabed is nearly as hostile to the human body as space.

NASA's Aquarius instrument, launched in 2011, mapped which property of the world's oceans from orbit?

Salinity. It gave NASA its first global maps of the sea's salt from space; shifts in saltiness show where rain falls and water evaporates, a key to Earth's water cycle.

In the NBC drama Aquarius, David Duchovny's detective tracks which cult leader?

Charles Manson. The series opens in 1967, two years before the murders that made him infamous, with the detective working a missing-person case that leads to his followers.

Aquarius is the tenth-largest constellation; which snake, winding a quarter of the way round the sky, is the largest?

Hydra. For all its size the water snake is easy to miss: its one fairly bright star, Alphard, sits alone in a long stretch of faint ones.

Stargazers find faint Aquarius by starting from the Great Square, a landmark of which constellation?

Pegasus. The Square is the winged horse's body, though one of its four corner stars now officially belongs to neighbouring Andromeda.

Only one zodiac constellation covers more sky than Aquarius; which is it, home to the bright star Spica?

Virgo. Size shows in the calendar: the Sun takes about six weeks to cross the maiden's stars, longer than it spends in any other constellation, against under four weeks in Aquarius.

Which world was discovered in 1846 among the stars of Aquarius, right where a mathematician had said to look?

Neptune: Johann Galle found it the very night Urbain Le Verrier's letter arrived, within a degree of where the Frenchman's sums put it; one slow orbit later, in 2011, it was back in Aquarius.

In 2021 NGC 7727 in Aquarius revealed the closest known pair of what?

Supermassive black holes: the two sit 89 million light-years away and only 1,600 light-years apart, left side by side when two galaxies merged, and are expected to merge into one themselves.

Astrologers give every sign a two-word motto; which one belongs to Aquarius?

I know: astrologers cast Aquarius as the zodiac's cool-headed original, sure of its own ideas and hard to argue out of them, while 'I think' goes to restless Gemini.

In the song that hails the Age of Aquarius, Jupiter lines up with which planet?

Mars: the song's 'dawning' is a moving target, since astrologers surveyed by the historian Nicholas Campion put the start of the age anywhere from 1447 to 3597, most often in the 20th century.

Which psychologist discussed the 'age of Aquarius' in his book Aion?

Carl Jung argued in Aion (1951) that the Aquarian age would raise the problem of uniting the opposites, the forces he saw locked in conflict throughout the era before it.