50 Fun Facts About Pisces

What does the Latin name Pisces mean?

The Greeks called it Ikhthyes, and both names are plural: there are two fish.

Pisces is which sign in the order of the zodiac?

It spans 330 to 360 degrees, ending at the spring equinox point where Aries begins.

What was the classical ruling planet of Pisces?

Modern astrologers hand the job to Neptune, discovered in 1846.

Which planet rules Pisces in modern astrology?

The sea god's planet was an obvious fit for the sign of the fishes once it was discovered.

Pisces belongs to which element and modality?

Cancer is the cardinal water sign and Scorpio the fixed one.

Which sign is opposite Pisces on the zodiac wheel?

Both are mutable; the maiden and the fishes close out summer and winter respectively.

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

The sign ends at the March equinox, the First Point of Aries.

Which planet is said to be exalted in Pisces?

Dante uses Venus exalted in Pisces as an image of divine love at the start of Purgatorio.

Pisces belongs to which polarity group?

The even-numbered earth and water signs are the negative or receptive ones.

Which ecliptic marker has lain within the constellation Pisces for the past two millennia?

Precession has carried it out of Aries and it is drifting on toward Aquarius.

Thanks to precession, the sign Pisces (330° to 0°) mostly covers which constellation?

Signs and constellations parted company about two thousand years ago because of Earth's wobble.

How are the two fish usually shown swimming, and what is it said to represent?

They are tied together by a cord, typically at the mouths or tails.

What is the meaning of Alrescha, the name of Alpha Piscium?

Ptolemy placed it where the cords joining the two fish are knotted together.

What does the name of Beta Piscium, Fumalsamakah, mean?

It is a hot B-type star nearly 500 light-years away.

How does Pisces rank for brightness among the zodiac constellations?

Only two of its stars are brighter than magnitude 4, so it vanishes near any big city.

Which star in Pisces bears the name Revati, meaning 'rich', and is a quintuple system?

Revati is also the last of the 27 Hindu lunar mansions.

Van Maanen's Star in Pisces is the closest known solitary example of what?

It packs about two-thirds of the Sun's mass into one percent of its radius.

How far away is Van Maanen's Star?

Only Sirius B and Procyon B are closer white dwarfs, and both have bright companions.

A 1917 photographic plate of Van Maanen's Star turned out to hold the earliest known evidence of what?

Calcium absorption lines showed rocky debris polluting the star's atmosphere, spotted only in 2016.

Messier 74 in Pisces is nicknamed what, because it is so hard for amateurs to see?

Its low surface brightness makes it the toughest Messier object, yet its face-on arms make it a textbook grand-design spiral.

Who discovered M74 in 1780 and passed it on to Charles Messier?

The James Webb Space Telescope imaged it in July 2022.

Roughly how many stars does M74 contain?

That is comparable to the Milky Way, and its spiral arms are lit by regions of new star formation.

The galaxy cluster CL0024+17 in Pisces is famous for doing what to the galaxy behind it?

The cluster is 3.6 billion light-years away, about half as far as the background galaxy it bends.

The radio galaxy 3C 31 in Pisces has jets that extend how far?

They are among the largest single objects in the universe, powered by the black hole at its centre.

In the Greek myth, the goddess of love and her son turned into fish to escape which monster?

Pan escaped the same monster by turning into a goat-fish, which became Capricornus.

Per Hyginus, into which river did the goddess of love and her son leap to flee the monster?

They were visiting Syria at the time; the Roman version has them carried off on the backs of two fish.

Who was the son of the goddess of love who fled with her and shares the constellation?

The pair were tied together with a cord so they would not lose each other in the water.

After fish and doves hatched her from an egg in one myth, what title was Aphrodite given?

She rewarded the fish by putting them in the sky, and was afterwards called the Syrian Goddess.

Because of these myths, Pisces was also known by which Latin nickname?

Other titles included Venus Syria cum Cupidine, Dione and Veneris Mater.

Which Latin poet's Astronomica says 'Venus ow'd her safety to their Shape' about the constellation?

His five-volume poem is the fullest surviving Roman astrology text.

The two fish appear as early as about 2300 BC on what kind of Egyptian object?

That makes Pisces one of the earliest zodiac signs on record.

The western fish of Pisces derives from which Babylonian constellation?

The northern fish came from Anunitum, 'Lady of the Heaven', and a cord asterism joined them.

According to the astrology article, the Age of Pisces began around AD 1 and will end around which year?

That is why some say the Age of Aquarius has already begun and others say it is still coming.

Which Greek word for fish did early Christians use as a code for Jesus, linking him to Pisces?

The word is an acrostic for 'Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour'.

The Greek letters of the early Christian fish word spell out an acrostic meaning what?

Its modern form, two crossing arcs, is the 'Jesus fish' seen on car bumpers.

Which apostle is regarded as the apostle of the Piscean sign?

Peter the fisherman was an easy match for the fishes.

In 1690 Johannes Hevelius divided Pisces into four parts: two fish and two what?

His South Fish should not be confused with Piscis Austrinus, now a separate constellation.

In 1754 John Hill proposed carving what now-obsolete constellation out of southern Pisces?

The head of the turtle would have been the star 20 Piscium; nobody else adopted it.

In the German tale of Antenteh, two magical fish granted his wife wishes until she asked to be what?

The angry fish took back the palace and left the couple with their tub, sometimes identified as the Great Square of Pegasus.

In Chinese astronomy, Pisces stars formed Wai-ping, an 'Outer Enclosure' for what animals?

The fence also stopped the pig farmer from falling into the marshes, represented by stars of Cetus.

Which two constellations flank Pisces in the zodiac?

Aquarius is of similar size to the south-west; Aries is smaller, to the east.

In the 21st century, the sky's origin point (RA 0h, dec 0°) lies in which constellation?

It sits at the spring equinox point, just south of Omega Piscium.

What abilities did Pisces have in the 1970 Avengers supervillain group named for the twelve signs?

Each member of the group Zodiac took a sign as a name.

The fish symbol is said to derive from which sea creatures that helped Aphrodite at her birth?

Ichthyocentaurs had human torsos, horse forelegs and fish tails.

Which of these deities is listed among the gods associated with Pisces?

Aphrodite, Eros, Typhon, Vishnu and Inanna are the others.

Purim falls at the full moon preceding which festival, itself set by the full moon in Aries?

Purim's full moon is therefore the one in Pisces, the last of the year.

Only how many stars in the large constellation Pisces are brighter than magnitude 4?

Its faintness makes the constellation essentially invisible from any major city because of light pollution.

Van Maanen's Star has about 67 percent of the Sun's mass packed into what fraction of its radius?

Its relatively cool 6,110 K surface suggests the white dwarf is around 3 billion years old.

Which amateur astronomer discovered a Type II-P supernova in the outskirts of M74 in June 2003?

The progenitor was later identified as a red supergiant of about eight solar masses; M74 lies 30 million light-years away.

In Ovid's Roman version of the myth, how do Venus and Cupid escape the monster Typhon?

In Hyginus's Greek version they leap into the Euphrates and transform into fishes themselves.