Planetary return calculator

A planetary return happens when a planet comes back to the exact ecliptic longitude it held at your birth. The best known are the solar return, your birthday, and the Saturn return near age 29. This page covers four others: Venus, Jupiter, the Moon and Chiron.

Astrologers treat each return as the start of a new cycle for that planet's themes. The cycles are traditions to think with. The date is exact, and the meaning is yours to decide.

Venus keeps close to the Sun in our sky, so it comes back to your birth degree about once a year, though not on a fixed date. The gaps alternate between about ten and thirteen months, because Venus repeats its pattern against the Sun only every eight years.

A Venus return is read as a time when relationships, money and taste come up for review. Venus turns retrograde for about forty days every nineteen months, so some returns are triple: the planet crosses your degree direct, backward and direct again.

Jupiter takes about 11.9 years to circle the zodiac, so its return comes near ages 12, 24, 36, 48 and 60. Its retrograde loops last about four months and make it cross your degree up to three times, and the calculator lists every pass.

Astrologers read the Jupiter return as a season of growth, study and opportunity, a good moment to ask what you want to expand. In the list, a pass marked retrograde is the backward crossing.

The Moon is back at its birth degree every 27 days and 8 hours, a little before the 29.5 days from one new Moon to the next. The lunar return chart, cast for that moment, is read as the mood and themes of the month ahead.

The Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, so half a day of error in your birth time moves the return by half a day. That is why the calculator shows only dates for the lunar return when your birth time is unknown.

Chiron needs about 50 years to circle the zodiac, but it moves faster in some signs than in others, so returns fall between ages 49 and 52. It can cross your degree up to three times while it turns retrograde.

Astrologers read Chiron as the wound that becomes a gift. The return near fifty is read as the point where a long sensitivity can become something you share or teach. Chiron has no fixed traditional meaning, so treat it as a mirror.

Seen from Earth, a planet sometimes seems to move backward. If your birth degree lies inside that backward stretch, the planet reaches it moving forward, crosses it going back, and crosses it a third time going forward again.

Astrologers usually treat the three passes as one return, with a build-up, a review and a resolution. The calculator lists each exact moment with its direction and groups them under one return.

The calculator reads your planet's apparent longitude at birth, then scans the sky back and forward from today in small steps (two hours for the Moon, a day for Venus, three days for Jupiter, five for Chiron) and refines each crossing to the minute. The planets come from VSOP87 and Meeus's lunar series, Chiron from a JPL Horizons table.

We check the results against JPL Horizons, and the times appear in your device's time zone. To read the chart of a return, compare it with your birth chart, or try the solar return next.