50 Fun Facts About Scorpio

Scorpio is which sign in the order of the zodiac?

It follows Libra and precedes Sagittarius, covering the heart of autumn in the northern hemisphere.

What is the classical ruling planet of Scorpio?

Since the 20th century many astrologers have handed the job to Pluto, discovered in 1930.

Which body, discovered in 1930, do modern astrologers assign as Scorpio's ruler?

Astrologers kept Pluto in charge even after astronomers demoted it to a dwarf planet in 2006.

Scorpio belongs to which element?

Cancer and Pisces are the other two water signs.

What is Scorpio's modality?

It is the third fixed sign after Taurus and Leo, sitting in the middle of autumn.

Which sign is opposite Scorpio on the zodiac wheel?

Both are fixed signs; the bull and the scorpion face each other across the chart.

Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun is in Scorpio on average between which dates?

The Sun is actually inside the constellation Scorpius for less than a week each year.

For how many days a year is the Sun actually within the IAU boundaries of the constellation Scorpius?

It runs from November 23 to 28, because the big constellation Ophiuchus takes up most of the rest of the stretch.

Which constellation, the so-called '13th sign', lies on the ecliptic between Scorpius and Sagittarius?

The serpent-bearer holds the Sun from about November 29 to December 18, but astrologers ignore it.

Someone born under Scorpio may be called a Scorpio or what other adjective?

Depending on the zodiac system in use, either term is considered correct.

Scorpio belongs to which polarity group?

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

According to The Astrology Bible, which of these is one of Scorpio's colours?

Deep red, black and brown round out the sign's palette.

Which two constellations flank Scorpius in the zodiac?

The scales to the west were once considered its claws.

What colour does Antares, the brightest star in Scorpius, appear to the naked eye?

It is a red supergiant so large it would swallow the orbit of Mars if it replaced the Sun.

What does the name Antares mean?

Its ruddy colour is easily mistaken for the planet Mars when the two are near each other.

Roughly how far away is Antares?

It is the brightest member of the Scorpius–Centaurus association, the nearest group of hot young stars to the Sun.

If Antares replaced the Sun, roughly how far out would its surface extend?

That makes it one of the largest stars visible to the naked eye, with 13 to 16 times the Sun's mass.

Antares is actually a binary; its faint companion is what kind of object?

The companion, magnitude 5.5, is drowned out by the supergiant and was only confirmed during lunar occultations in the 1800s.

Which planet last passed in front of Antares, in 525 BC, and will next do so in 2400?

The star lies 4.57 degrees south of the ecliptic, so most planets pass north of it.

In Mesopotamian astronomy, Antares was always called what?

It was linked with the goddess Lisin; the 'rival of Mars' idea is Greek, not Babylonian.

Which two stars at the tip of the scorpion's tail both have names meaning 'sting'?

Because they sit so close together they are nicknamed the Cat's Eyes.

What nickname do the close pair of tail-tip stars Lambda and Upsilon Scorpii share?

Shaula, the brighter, is one of the brightest stars in the sky despite lacking a Bayer 'alpha'.

The bright stars of Scorpius are said to trace what everyday object?

In Hawaii the same shape is read as the demigod Maui's fishhook.

What does the name of Delta Scorpii, Dschubba, mean?

The star flared unexpectedly in July 2000 and has been variable ever since.

U Scorpii holds what record among stellar explosions?

It flares up roughly every 10 years and then fades within days.

AH Scorpii, one of the largest stars known, is roughly how many times the Sun's size?

It is 340,000 times brighter than the Sun yet too faint to see without a telescope because it is so far away.

Which globular cluster near Antares was the first to have its individual stars resolved?

It is one of the closest globular clusters to Earth and shows a curious bar of stars across its core.

M6 in Scorpius is nicknamed after which creature?

Its neighbour M7 is the Ptolemy Cluster, which the ancient astronomer recorded with the naked eye.

Which object in Scorpius, M7, is named after the ancient astronomer who recorded it?

It is one of the few deep-sky objects mentioned in classical antiquity.

NGC 6302 in Scorpius, a bipolar cloud of gas shed by a dying star, is known by which insect nickname?

Its neighbour NGC 6334 is the Cat's Paw Nebula, a star-forming region.

In Greek myth, the scorpion was sent to kill which boastful hunter?

That is why Orion sets in the west as Scorpius rises in the east, forever fleeing.

In one version, which goddess and her mother sent the scorpion after the hunter boasted he would kill every animal?

Zeus put both fighters in the sky as a warning against excessive pride.

In Greek myth, the celestial scorpion frightened the Sun's horses while they were driven by which youth?

Phaethon lost control of his father Helios' chariot and Zeus had to strike him down.

What did the Babylonians call the constellation, MUL.GIR.TAB, literally mean?

The Babylonians also treated neighbouring Libra as the scorpion's claws.

In Hawaii, Scorpius is known as the fishhook of which demigod?

The hook itself was named Manaiakalani, and it appears in the film Moana.

The Javanese call Scorpius Kalapa Doyong, meaning what?

Their other name for it, Banyakangrem, means the brooded swan.

On the flag of Brazil, Scorpius represents which region of the country?

Each star on the flag stands for a state; Bahia is instead part of the Southern Cross.

Bugis sailors split Scorpius into two navigational asterisms named after which animals?

The northern part was the skate stars, the southern the shark stars.

Which Egyptian goddess, shown with a scorpion on her head, protected against venomous stings?

She was one of the four goddesses guarding the canopic jars, and a gilded statue of her stood at Tutankhamun's shrine.

Real scorpions are found on every continent except which?

They even survive at 5,500 metres in the Andes and in a colony at Sheerness in England.

Roughly how many of the 2,500-plus scorpion species have venom capable of killing a human?

Fewer than one percent; healthy adults rarely need treatment after a sting.

Under what kind of light does a scorpion's exoskeleton glow?

Fluorescent chemicals in the shell make UV torches the standard way to find scorpions at night.

Scorpions have been around since which geological period, about 430 million years ago?

The oldest known fossil, Dolichophonus loudonensis, comes from what is now Scotland.

Which gemstone is the November birthstone, covering most of Scorpio season?

Orange 'precious' topaz is Utah's state gem; blue topaz is Texas's.

Which Hindu lunar mansion (nakshatra) is NOT one of the three that correspond to Scorpius?

Rohini is Aldebaran, in Taurus, on the opposite side of the sky.

How were the stars of neighbouring Libra regarded in Ancient Greek times?

The Greek name was Chelae Scorpionis, and Arabic star names in Libra still mean 'claw'.

Scorpius was one of how many constellations catalogued by Ptolemy in the second century?

Recognition of the scorpion predates Greek culture entirely; the modern IAU list runs to 88 constellations.

What animal-themed nickname does the star-forming region NGC 6334 in Scorpius carry?

It is a star-forming region; the constellation also hosts the Bug Nebula and the globular clusters Messier 4 and Messier 80.

Which span of ecliptic longitude does the sign Scorpio cover?

Each of the twelve signs takes a 30-degree slice; Scorpio's stretch is the eighth, between Libra and Sagittarius.

Which rare object did Arthur von Auwers discover in the Scorpius globular cluster Messier 80 in 1860?

The nova, T Scorpii, appeared in a dense Shapley class II cluster about 33,000 light-years away that Charles Messier had found in 1781.