The Uranus symbol

The first planet with a known date of discovery

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn have been known since antiquity, so their glyphs have no author. Uranus is different. William Herschel found it on 13 March 1781 from Bath, England, and he first thought he had a comet. The finding more than doubled the known width of the solar system, and it forced astronomers and astrologers to design a glyph from scratch.

Herschel wanted to name it after the king, George III. The name that stuck, Uranus, was proposed by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode, after the Greek god of the sky who is the grandfather of Jupiter in the myths, which fitted the planet's place beyond Saturn.

The two Uranus glyphs

How the H and the globe are read

Unlike the glyphs of the classical planets, the Uranus glyph has a known designer and a plain reading.

1. 1. The H

   It stands for Herschel, the planet's discoverer. The form with the globe is credited to the French astronomer Jerome Lalande, who proposed it in 1784.

2. 2. The globe

   It stands for the planet itself, hung from the letter like a lantern from a post.

3. 3. Two designs

   The astronomical form is a separate design with no H in it. Johann Gottfried Kohler drew it in 1782 as the Sun joined to Mars, the same figure alchemists used for platinum. Only Lalande's version carries the H and the globe, and it became the astrological standard.

Seven years in a sign

Uranus goes round the zodiac in 84 years, so it spends about seven years in each sign. It moved into Taurus in 2018 and into Gemini in 2025, and the transits pages carry the exact dates, including the brief returns that retrograde motion produces. A person born in a given year shares the Uranus sign with everyone born within seven years or so, which is why it is read as a generational planet.

A further oddity that astronomers note: Uranus spins tipped almost onto its side, with an axial tilt of 97.8 degrees, so it rolls around its orbit like a ball. The tradition has no reading for that, but it fits the planet's reputation for upending the usual order.

What the planet stands for

Astrologers give Uranus the modern rulership of Aquarius, which in the older scheme belonged to Saturn. They connect it with independence, originality, rebellion and the sudden break from a pattern. It was also the first planet found with a telescope, which is one reason it is tied to discovery and invention. The Uranus return, when the planet comes back to its birth position, falls at around age 84, which few people reach, so it is usually discussed as a rare marker. The transits pages list its present sign and the dates of its moves.

Which glyph to use where

• Use ♅︎ for astrology and ⛢︎ for astronomy.
• In HTML, ♅ produces the first and ⛢ the second.
• Fonts that cover the classical planets sometimes omit the second form, so check it before printing.
• Uranus is not paired with a metal in the old scheme, since it was found long after the scheme was settled.