Stelliums · by house and by sign
What is a stellium? Every house and every sign, counted.
A stellium is three or more planets in the same sign or house. Under that rule 68.7% of charts have one somewhere by sign, but only 27.6% if you count just the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars. Which sign or house it falls in decides what it means.
What counts as a stellium
The tradition sets no fixed number. Most modern astrologers say three planets in one sign or house; some want four, and some refuse to count Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, which spend years in a sign and so turn up in everyone born in the same stretch. The rule changes the answer a great deal, so here it is three ways, from 60,000 computed charts.
| Bodies counted | 3+ in one sign | 4+ in one sign | Clusters in two signs |
|---|---|---|---|
| All ten bodies, Sun to Pluto | 68.7% | 20.9% | 13.95% |
| Sun to Saturn (the visible planets) | 43.7% | 8.3% | 0.98% |
| Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars | 27.6% | 2.9% | 0.00% |
The last column answers whether you can have two stelliums: under the widest rule 13.9% of charts carry three-planet clusters in two different signs at once. Leave out the outer planets and it falls to 0.98%; with only the five personal bodies it is arithmetically impossible, since two clusters of three would need six. How the sample and the three rules are defined.
Sign or house: which kind of stellium do you have
A sign stellium needs only your birth date, because the planets' signs are the same wherever you were born; the Moon is the one exception, since it can change sign during the day. A house stellium needs the birth time and place, because the rising sign sets which house each sign falls in. With whole-sign houses the two are the same cluster seen twice: the sign says how it behaves, the house says which part of life it occupies. The stellium calculator shows both when you know your time and signs only when you do not.
Stellium by sign
Sign stelliums are far from evenly spread. The six signs from Virgo to Aquarius each run between 7.2% and 10.6%, because Uranus, Neptune and Pluto moved through them between 1950 and 2010; Aries, Taurus and Gemini held no outer planet in those years, and their clusters are built from personal planets alone.
| Sign | 3+ planets (all ten) | Personal five only | Peak birth decade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stellium in Aries | 3.56% | 2.53% | 1990s: 4.5% |
| Stellium in Taurus | 3.22% | 1.94% | 1970s: 4.0% |
| Stellium in Gemini | 3.57% | 2.29% | 2000s: 5.9% |
| Stellium in Cancer | 4.13% | 1.90% | 1950s: 7.9% |
| Stellium in Leo | 6.10% | 2.49% | 1950s: 15.8% |
| Stellium in Virgo | 10.59% | 2.78% | 1960s: 32.6% |
| Stellium in Libra | 10.14% | 2.42% | 1980s: 22.4% |
| Stellium in Scorpio | 9.85% | 2.95% | 1980s: 16.4% |
| Stellium in Sagittarius | 10.57% | 2.18% | 1980s: 26.9% |
| Stellium in Capricorn | 10.35% | 2.38% | 1990s: 27.1% |
| Stellium in Aquarius | 7.20% | 1.92% | 2000s: 18.3% |
| Stellium in Pisces | 3.79% | 1.78% | 2000s: 6.4% |
Stellium by house
- 1st house stelliumbody, self-presentation, how you start things · about 7.3% of charts
- 2nd house stelliumincome, possessions, self-worth · about 7.5% of charts
- 3rd house stelliumsiblings, neighbours, short trips, learning, daily communication · about 7.5% of charts
- 4th house stelliumhome, family, parents, foundations · about 7.4% of charts
- 5th house stelliumchildren, romance, creativity, play · about 7.0% of charts
- 6th house stelliumwork routines, colleagues, health maintenance · about 6.8% of charts
- 7th house stelliumpartnership, marriage, contracts, open opponents · about 6.7% of charts
- 8th house stelliumshared money, debt, intimacy, loss · about 6.4% of charts
- 9th house stelliumstudy, travel, publishing, belief · about 6.3% of charts
- 10th house stelliumcareer, public role, reputation · about 6.3% of charts
- 11th house stelliumfriends, groups, long-term goals · about 6.8% of charts
- 12th house stelliumretreat, hidden work, endings, what is unresolved · about 7.0% of charts
Is a stellium generational? By sign and birth decade
Often, yes. The share of births with three or more of the ten planets in each sign, decade by decade, shows where the slow planets were sitting. Each cell holds about 10,000 charts, so read differences under a point as noise.
| Sign | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aries | 3.0% | 4.5% | 3.4% | 3.3% | 4.5% | 2.6% |
| Taurus | 3.4% | 3.7% | 4.0% | 2.9% | 2.5% | 2.9% |
| Gemini | 2.9% | 2.8% | 4.0% | 3.4% | 2.4% | 5.9% |
| Cancer | 7.9% | 3.3% | 4.3% | 2.8% | 1.6% | 4.8% |
| Leo | 15.8% | 4.0% | 4.5% | 3.0% | 4.2% | 5.3% |
| Virgo | 8.3% | 32.6% | 7.3% | 7.7% | 2.5% | 5.1% |
| Libra | 11.7% | 5.0% | 14.1% | 22.4% | 2.9% | 4.3% |
| Scorpio | 10.4% | 9.7% | 10.4% | 16.4% | 8.6% | 3.5% |
| Sagittarius | 4.5% | 2.3% | 11.8% | 26.9% | 7.8% | 9.8% |
| Capricorn | 2.1% | 6.0% | 2.9% | 18.9% | 27.1% | 5.0% |
| Aquarius | 3.1% | 5.0% | 2.8% | 2.4% | 11.7% | 18.3% |
| Pisces | 2.4% | 4.4% | 2.6% | 2.8% | 4.3% | 6.4% |
60,000 charts, births spread evenly over 1950–2010, ten bodies Sun to Pluto, JPL DE442. The full output is published as a data file; the method is on the methodology page.
68.6% of charts hold at least one stellium. The calculator shows which sign and house hold yours.
Start with the course chapter on stellia, or check your own chart.