Which Mars Sign Is Rarest? Aquarius (6.0%) — Libra Is Most Common (9.9%). Every Day 1980–2009 Counted
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If Mars spent the same time in every sign, each Mars sign would belong to 8.3% of birthdays. It doesn't. Counting every day from 1980 to 2009 (10,958 days), our engine finds Mars in Libra 9.9% of the time and in Aquarius only 6.0%.
Mars sign, share of days, 1980–2009
| Mars sign | Days | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Libra | 1,085 | 9.90% (most common) |
| Cancer | 1,055 | 9.63% |
| Virgo | 1,042 | 9.51% |
| Scorpio | 1,014 | 9.25% |
| Leo | 1,006 | 9.18% |
| Gemini | 930 | 8.49% |
| Taurus | 892 | 8.14% |
| Sagittarius | 860 | 7.85% |
| Capricorn | 818 | 7.46% |
| Aries | 810 | 7.39% |
| Pisces | 787 | 7.18% |
| Aquarius | 659 | 6.01% (rarest) |
A Mars in Libra birthday was about 1.6 times as common as a Mars in Aquarius birthday in these thirty years.
Why the split is uneven
Two things pile up.
- Mars's orbit is clearly elliptical. Mars moves fastest near its closest point to the Sun, which lies toward Pisces and Aquarius as seen from the Sun, and slowest on the opposite side, toward Virgo and Libra. Faster motion means fewer days per sign.
- Retrograde loops. About every 26 months Mars appears to stop and back up for two to three months, so the sign where a retrograde happens gets extra days. In 2011–2012, for example, Mars stayed in Virgo for 235 days without a break.
Thirty years is about sixteen Mars orbits, so the exact ranking would shift a little over a different 30 years. The broad pattern, with the Virgo–Libra side long and the Aquarius–Pisces side short, comes from the orbit and holds.
Where Mars is right now
Mars is in Leo and enters Virgo on November 26, 2026. With the 2027 retrograde it will spend about 147 days in Virgo before reaching Libra in July 2027.
What the numbers do and don't tell you
How often Mars is in each sign is astronomy. What a rare or common Mars sign means is an interpretation, and this count cannot prove or disprove it. A rare placement is not a special one, and a common one is not an ordinary one. These are statistics, not you.
How we calculated: planetary positions from the public-domain formulas in our chart engine (Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms, and NASA/JPL low-precision orbital elements). We took Mars's sign at 00:00 UTC on every day from January 1, 1980 to December 31, 2009 and counted. Our Mars is accurate to a few hundredths of a degree, so only a birth within about an hour of an ingress could change sign.