Planetary symbols


Planetary symbols are used in astrology and traditionally in astronomy to represent a classical planet or one of the modern planets. The classical symbols were also used in alchemy for the seven metals known to the ancients, which were associated with the planets, and in calendars for the seven days of the week associated with the seven planets. The original symbols date to Greco-Roman astronomy; their modern forms developed in the 16th century, and additional symbols would be created later for newly discovered planets.
The seven classical planets, their symbols, days and most commonly associated planetary metals are:
PlanetMoonMercuryVenusSunMarsJupiterSaturn
Symbolfile:Moon decrescent symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|☾file:Mercury symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|☿file:Venus symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♀file:Sun symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|☉file:Mars symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♂file:Jupiter symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♃file:Saturn symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♄
UnicodeU+263E ☾U+263F ☿U+2640 ♀U+2609 ☉U+2642 ♂U+2643 ♃U+2644 ♄
DayMondayWednesdayFridaySundayTuesdayThursdaySaturday
MetalSilverQuicksilver CopperGoldIronTinLead

The International Astronomical Union discourages the use of these symbols in modern journal articles, and their style manual proposes one- and two-letter abbreviations for the names of the planets for cases where planetary symbols might be used, such as in the headings of tables.
The modern planets with their traditional symbols and IAU abbreviations are:
PlanetMercuryVenusEarthMarsJupiterSaturnUranusNeptune
Symbolfile:Mercury symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|☿file:Venus symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♀file:Earth symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|?file:Mars symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♂file:Jupiter symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♃file:Saturn symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♄file:Uranus platinum symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|⛢file:Neptune symbol.svg|class=skin-invert-image|24px|♆
UnicodeU+263F ☿U+2640 ♀U+1F728 ?U+2642 ♂U+2643 ♃U+2644 ♄U+26E2 ⛢U+2646 ♆
Initial Me,
H		VEMa,
M		JSUN

The symbols of Venus and Mars are also used to represent female and male in biology following a convention introduced by Carl Linnaeus in the 1750s.

History

Classical planets

The origins of the planetary symbols can be found in the attributes given to classical deities. The Roman planisphere of Bianchini shows the seven planets represented by portraits of the seven corresponding gods, each a bust with a halo and an iconic object or dress, as follows: Mercury has a caduceus and a winged cap; Venus has a necklace and a shining mirror; Mars has a war-helmet and a spear; Jupiter has a laurel crown and a staff; Saturn has a conical headdress and a scythe; the Sun has rays emanating from his head; and the Moon has a crescent atop her head.
The written symbols for Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn have been traced to forms found in late Greek papyri.
Early forms are also found in medieval Byzantine codices which preserve horoscopes.
A diagram in the astronomical compendium by Johannes Kamateros closely resembles the 11th-century forms shown above, with the Sun represented by a circle with a single ray, Jupiter by the letter zeta, Mars by a round shield in front of a diagonal spear, and the remaining classical planets by symbols resembling the modern ones, though without the crosses seen in modern versions of Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. These crosses first appear in the late 15th or early 16th century. According to Maunder, the addition of crosses appears to be "an attempt to give a savour of Christianity to the symbols of the old pagan gods."
The modern forms of the classical planetary symbols are found in a woodcut of the seven planets in a Latin translation of Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi's De Magnis Coniunctionibus printed at Venice in 1506, represented as the corresponding gods riding chariots.

Earth symbol

is not one of the classical planets, as "planets" by definition were "wandering stars" as seen from Earth's surface.
Earth's status as planet is a consequence of heliocentrism in the 16th century.
Nonetheless, there is a pre-heliocentric symbol for the world, now used as a planetary symbol for the Earth. This is a circle crossed by two lines, horizontal and vertical, representing the world divided by four rivers into the four quarters of the world :. A variant, now obsolete, had only the horizontal line: file:Salt symbol.svg|16px|?.
A medieval European symbol for the world - the globus cruciger, – is also used as a planetary symbol; it resembles an inverted symbol for Venus.
The planetary symbols for Earth are encoded in Unicode at and.

Classical planets

Moon

The crescent shape has been used to represent the Moon since antiquity. In classical antiquity, it is worn by lunar deities either on the head or behind the shoulders, with its horns pointing upward.
The representation of the moon as a simple crescent with the horns pointing to the side is attested from late Classical times.
The same symbol can be used in a different context not for the Moon itself but for a lunar phase, as part of a sequence of four symbols
for "new moon", "waxing", "full moon" and "waning".

Mercury

The symbol for Mercury is a caduceus, a symbol associated with Mercury / Hermes throughout antiquity. Some time after the 11th century, a cross was added to the bottom of the staff to Christianize the symbol.
The symbol was once the designated symbol for hermaphroditic or 'perfect' flowers, but botanists now use for these.
A related usage is for the 'worker' or 'neuter' sex among social insects that is neither male nor fully female, such as worker bees.
More recently, it has been used to indicate intersex, transgender, or non-binary gender.
The Unicode codepoint is.

Venus

The Venus symbol, ♀, consists of a circle with a small cross below it.
It is conjectured to be a depiction of the hand-mirror of the goddess, which may also explain Venus's association with the planetary metal copper, as mirrors in antiquity were made of polished copper,
though this is not certain. The addition of the cross is relatively recent – in the Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyri 235, the symbols for Venus and Mercury did not have the cross on the bottom stem, and Venus appears without the cross in Johannes Kamateros' 12th-century Compendium of Astrology.
In botany and biology, the symbol for Venus is used to represent the female sex, alongside the symbol for Mars representing the male sex,
following a convention introduced by Linnaeus in the 1750s.
Unicode encodes the symbol as, in the Miscellaneous Symbols block.

Sun

The modern astronomical symbol for the Sun, the circumpunct, was first used in the Renaissance. It possibly represents Apollo's golden shield with a boss.
Bianchini's planisphere, produced in the 2nd century, shows a circlet with rays radiating from it.
In late Classical times, the Sun is attested as a circle with a single ray. A diagram in Johannes Kamateros' 12th century Compendium of Astrology shows the same symbol.
This older symbol is encoded by Unicode as in the Alchemical Symbols block. Both symbols have been used alchemically for gold, as have more elaborate symbols showing a disk with multiple rays or even a face.

Mars

The Mars symbol, ♂, is a depiction of a shield and a spear, indicating the god of war.
It is also the old and obsolete symbol for iron in alchemy. In zoology and botany, it is used to represent the male sex, following a convention introduced by Linnaeus in the 1750s.
The symbol dates from at latest the 11th century, at which time it was an arrow across or through a circle, thought to represent the shield and spear of the god Mars; in the medieval form, for example in the 12th-century Compendium of Astrology by Johannes Kamateros, the spear is drawn across the shield. The Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyri show a different symbol, perhaps simply a spear.
Its Unicode codepoint is.

Jupiter

The symbol for Jupiter, ♃, was originally a Greek zeta, Ζ, with a stroke indicating that it is an abbreviation.
Its Unicode codepoint is.

Saturn

and earlier attestations show that the symbol for Saturn, ♄, derives from the initial letters of its ancient Greek name Κρόνος, with a stroke to indicate an abbreviation. By the time of Kamateros, the symbol had been reduced to a shape similar to a lower-case letter eta η, with the abbreviation stroke surviving in the curl on the bottom-right end.
Its Unicode codepoint is.

Modern discoveries

Uranus

The symbols for Uranus were created shortly after its discovery in 1781. One symbol, ⛢, invented by J. G. Köhler and refined by Bode, was intended to represent the newly discovered metal platinum; since platinum, commonly called white gold, was found by chemists mixed with iron, the symbol for platinum combines the alchemical symbols for iron, ♂, and gold, ☉.
Gold and iron are the planetary metals for the Sun and Mars, and so share their symbols. Several orientations were suggested, but an upright arrow is now universal.
Another symbol,, was suggested by Lalande in 1784. In a letter to Herschel, Lalande described it as "a globe surmounted by the first letter of your name".
The platinum symbol tends to be used by astronomers, and the monogram by astrologers.
For use in computer systems, the symbols are encoded and.