The Sun
Star
The centre of the system, and of the chart.
In the sky right now
Libra 25°56′
Ecliptic longitude 205.95°
Currently direct
Retrograde cycle
The Sun never appears to move backwards from Earth. Because the Sun's apparent path is a direct reflection of Earth's own orbit, its zodiacal motion is always forward — roughly 1° per day.
Astronomy
- Type
- G2V main-sequence star
- Diameter
- 1,392,700 km (about 109 Earths)
- Mass
- 99.86% of all mass in the solar system
- Surface temperature
- about 5,500 °C (photosphere)
- Core temperature
- about 15 million °C
- Distance from Earth
- 149.6 million km (1 AU)
- Rotation
- 25 days at the equator, 35 near the poles
- Age
- about 4.6 billion years
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
Helios (later identified with Apollo)
Roman
Sol
To the Greeks, Helios was the sun itself — a Titan who drove a four-horse chariot across the sky each day, rising from the east out of Oceanus and returning by night. He was the all-seeing witness: in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter it is Helios who tells the grieving mother that Hades has taken Persephone, because nothing on earth escapes his sight.
From roughly the 5th century BCE onward, Greek writers increasingly conflated Helios with Apollo, the god of prophecy, music, healing and light. This was a later syncretism, not the original scheme — Homer treats Helios and Apollo as distinct gods.
The Romans worshipped Sol. An older cult of Sol Indiges gave way in the 3rd century CE to Sol Invictus, the 'Unconquered Sun', promoted heavily by the emperor Aurelian in 274 CE, whose December festival is one of the most-debated ancestors of later midwinter celebrations.
In a natal chart
The Sun is the core identity — the conscious self, vitality, will, and the thing a person is fundamentally becoming. It is the sign most people mean when they say 'I'm a Leo'.
It moves through one zodiac sign roughly every 30 days, completing the circle in a year, which is why the Sun sign can be found from the birth date alone.
The Sun rules Leo, is exalted in Aries, in detriment in Aquarius and in fall in Libra.
Rules: Leo
See where The Sun 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.