50 Fun Facts About Libra

What object does the sign Libra represent?

It is the only zodiac sign represented by an object rather than an animal or person.

Libra is unique among the zodiac signs because it is the only one represented by what?

Every other sign is an animal or a mythological figure, though some old pictures show a man holding the scales.

Libra is which sign in the order of the zodiac?

It opens the second half of the zodiac at the autumn equinox point, 180 degrees from Aries.

Which planet rules Libra?

Venus shares the job with Taurus; Saturn is said to be exalted in Libra.

Libra belongs to which element?

With Gemini and Aquarius it makes up the air triplicity, the signs of thought and communication.

What is Libra's modality?

Cardinal signs begin the seasons; Libra starts autumn in the northern hemisphere.

Which sign is opposite Libra on the zodiac wheel?

The two mark the equinoxes: Aries the spring one and Libra the autumn one.

Which planet is said to be exalted in Libra?

The Sun, by contrast, is in its 'fall' there, opposite its exaltation in Aries.

On average, the Sun is in the sign Libra between which dates?

The real constellation Libra does not host the Sun until the very end of October.

Astronomically, when does the Sun actually pass through the constellation Libra (as of 2002)?

Precession has moved the constellation more than a month away from its astrological dates.

The scales of Libra are based on those held by which Greek personification of ancient sacred law?

She was a Titan, the second wife of Zeus, and the model for modern statues of Lady Justice.

What is the Latin name of the Roman goddess of justice, whose scales became Lady Justice's?

She was a late arrival, introduced by Augustus, and got her own temple under Tiberius.

Which Roman emperor introduced the goddess of justice to the Roman pantheon?

Justice was one of the virtues on his golden shield, the clipeus virtutis.

Weighing justice on scales goes back to which ancient culture, whose god Anubis weighed hearts against a feather?

A heavy heart meant being eaten by Ammit, a crocodile-headed monster.

Since roughly which century has Lady Justice commonly been shown wearing a blindfold?

The blindfold started as satire, showing Justice blind to the injustice in front of her, and was later reread as impartiality.

The first known statue of a blindfolded Justice, from 1543, stands on a fountain in which city?

Hans Gieng's figure tops the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen, the Fountain of Justice.

According to the Roman writer Manilius, which professionals are born under Libra?

He also called it the sign 'in which the seasons are balanced', because day and night are equal at the equinox.

The Moon was said to be in Libra at the founding of which city?

The Romans trusted the 'balanced sign' and read a good omen into it.

Before it became the scales, the Greeks saw Libra's stars as part of which constellation?

They called the area chelae, the claws, and the star names still preserve that meaning.

What does the name of Alpha Librae, Zubenelgenubi, mean in Arabic?

Beta Librae is the northern claw and Gamma is 'the scorpion's claw', a full set of leftovers from Scorpius.

Which star is the brightest in Libra?

Unusually, Alpha is not the brightest; Bayer's letters do not always follow brightness.

Libra's brightest star is often described as showing what unusual tint?

It is a hot blue-white B-type star, and no one is quite sure why observers report a greenish cast.

According to Eratosthenes, Libra's brightest star once outshone which red star in neighbouring Scorpius?

Ptolemy later called the two equal, so either Antares brightened or the Libra star is slightly variable.

Traditionally, which two stars represent the beam of the scales, with Gamma and Sigma as the pans?

Together the four bright stars form a quadrangle that is the easiest way to spot the constellation.

Until 1851 Sigma Librae (Brachium) carried a designation in which other constellation?

Benjamin Gould finally moved 'Gamma Scorpii' into Libra, where it had always physically been.

Delta Librae is what kind of variable star?

Every 2 days and 8 hours a companion crosses in front and dims it by a full magnitude.

Which red dwarf in Libra generated some of the first claims of potentially habitable exoplanets?

The candidates 'd' and 'g' probably do not exist, and 'c' turned out to be too hot.

How far away is the red dwarf that hosts Libra's best-known planetary system?

It sits about two degrees north of Libra's brightest star.

The disputed planet 'g' in Libra's red-dwarf system was nicknamed what by one of its discoverers?

Steven Vogt said the chances of life there were '100%'; other teams could not find the planet at all.

When it was found in 2009, planet 'e' of Libra's red-dwarf system held what record?

Its minimum mass was just 1.9 Earths.

The oldest known star, HD 140283, is nicknamed after which long-lived biblical figure?

Early estimates made it apparently older than the universe itself; the latest give about 14.2 billion years.

The 2013 Hubble-based estimate for HD 140283's age was about how many billion years?

That awkwardly exceeded the 13.8-billion-year age of the universe, though the error bars overlapped.

Which globular cluster is Libra's one bright deep-sky object of that kind?

It is a loose cluster about 50,000 light-years away.

Libra was known in Babylonian astronomy as MUL Zibanu, meaning what?

They also called it the Claws of the Scorpion, and it was sacred to the sun god Shamash.

To which Babylonian god, patron of truth and justice, were the scales of Libra sacred?

Shamash was the sun god, and the association with fairness and law has stuck to Libra ever since.

In ancient Egypt, the three brightest stars of Libra formed a constellation seen as what?

The Egyptians drew much of the sky as river traffic.

Libra only became a constellation in its own right under which civilisation?

The Romans made it the scales held by Astraea, the justice goddess linked with Virgo next door.

In which year did the autumn equinox, the 'First Point of Libra', leave that constellation?

Precession has since carried it through Virgo; the spring equinox point is likewise no longer in Aries.

Which Greek poet's line 'few conspicuous stars the Claws can boast' popularised the name Claws?

His Phaenomena was the most-read astronomy poem of antiquity.

Libra ranks where among the 88 constellations by size?

It covers 538 square degrees, about 1.3 percent of the sky, with no first-magnitude stars.

What is the IAU three-letter abbreviation for Libra?

The abbreviations date to 1922; Delporte fixed the boundaries in 1930 with a 12-sided polygon.

The abbreviation 'lb' for pound comes from libra, which was a Roman unit of what?

The Roman libra weighed about 329 grams and was split into 12 unciae, the origin of ounces.

The Roman libra was divided into how many unciae, the ancestor of the ounce?

The libra itself weighed about 329 grams; a modern pound has 16 ounces.

Which two constellations flank Libra in the zodiac?

The maiden is to the west and the scorpion, its former owner, to the east.

The Titan goddess whose scales Libra represents was one of the twelve children of which primordial pair?

That makes her a Titan, and she was also linked with the Oracle of Delphi.

Libra belongs to which polarity group of signs?

Odd-numbered signs are positive; the air and fire triplicities together.

What does Zubenelakrab, the traditional name of Gamma Librae, mean?

The name completes the set of Libra star names recalling its old role as the claws of Scorpius.

Who redesignated the star formerly called Gamma Scorpii as Sigma Librae in 1851?

The star, properly named Brachium, had long sat well inside Libra's boundaries.

In sidereal astrology, the Sun is considered to be in Libra between roughly which dates?

Tropical astrology instead starts Libra at the northern autumnal equinox around September 23.

How many stars did Ptolemy catalogue in Libra among his 48 asterisms?

Tycho Brahe later listed 10 and Johannes Hevelius 20.