Mars
Planet
Drive, anger, appetite and the will to act.
In the sky right now
Leo 11°59′
Ecliptic longitude 132.00°
Currently direct
Daily motion 0.540° per day
Retrograde cycle
- StatusDirect
- Last went directFeb 24, 2025
- Next retrograde beginsJan 10, 2027
- Next retrograde endsApr 1, 2027
- Mars retrogrades about every 26 months, for roughly 60 to 80 days — the least frequent retrograde of the personal planets.
Astronomy
- Average distance from the Sun
- 227.9 million km (1.52 AU)
- Orbital period
- 687 Earth days
- Rotation period
- 24 hours 37 minutes
- Diameter
- 6,779 km — about half of Earth's
- Moons
- Two: Phobos and Deimos, discovered by Asaph Hall in 1877
- Highest mountain
- Olympus Mons, about 22 km — tallest in the solar system
- Canyon
- Valles Marineris, over 4,000 km long
- Why it is red
- Iron oxide dust across the surface
Planetary facts follow NASA and JPL reference data. Moon counts reflect IAU-recognised satellites as of August 2026. Zodiacal positions and retrograde stations are calculated live using the app's VSOP87/NOVAS-derived astronomy engine rather than being hard-coded. The lunar nodes shown are True (osculating) nodes, computed from the Moon's instantaneous orbital plane — the same convention Astro.com uses by default.
Greek & Roman mythology
Greek
Ares
Roman
Mars
Ares was the Greek god of the brutality of war — the slaughter itself, as opposed to Athena's strategic and civic warfare. The Greeks were notably ambivalent about him: in the Iliad, Zeus tells him outright that he is the most hateful of the gods, and Ares is wounded and humiliated more than once.
His long affair with Aphrodite, exposed by Hephaestus in a net of invisible chains, is one of the best-known comic episodes in the Odyssey.
Mars was quite different in Rome, and far more respected: a god of both war and agriculture, second only to Jupiter, and the father of Romulus and Remus, making him the ancestor of the Roman people. March — Martius — was his month and the traditional start of the campaigning season. The Roman Mars is not simply a translated Ares; Rome's own martial self-image reshaped the god.
In a natal chart
Mars is desire in action: drive, courage, aggression, competition, physical energy and sexuality. It shows how a person pursues what they want and how they fight.
It spends roughly six to seven weeks in a sign, though a retrograde can stretch that to several months.
Mars rules Aries and — traditionally — Scorpio, is exalted in Capricorn, in detriment in Libra and Taurus, and in fall in Cancer.
Rules: Aries (and traditionally Scorpio)
See where Mars falls in your chartExplore the rest of the sky
Don't write your paper based on this page. We keep the facts as accurate as we can, but moon counts get revised, missions rewrite the textbooks, and the live positions are computed on the fly — treat this as a reliable starting point, not a real-time oracle.