astronomical symbol

Astronomy and astrology have used a number of symbols (astronomical symbols), such as an asterisk-like symbol (but often with five points) for a star and a circle with a dot in the center for the Sun. Those two and the symbol for Earth are those that are commonly used in astrophysics today, generally as subscripts. Some of the common symbols:

• ☉ - Sun.
• ☿ - Mercury.
• ♀ - Venus
• ♁ or ⊕ - Earth.
• ♂ - Mars.
• ♃ - Jupiter.
• ♄ - Saturn.
• ♅ or ⛢ - Uranus.
• ♆ - Neptune.
• ♇ or ⯓ - Pluto.
• ⚳ - Ceres.
• * (asterisk) or ★ - star (I've sometimes seen a five-spoked asterisk used for "star" when the "normal" asterisks were six-spoked, as if to distinguish them: it may be that the opposite is sometimes used as well).

Note: the above renderings are by your browser and its font, which may not include graphics for some of these symbols and render them with some default graphic such as "􏿿". See the Further reading for images of the symbol graphics.