Capella
BehenianAlpha Aurigae · Auriga
Position (2026)
♊ 22°14' Gemini
Magnitude
0.08
Planetary Nature
Mars / Mercury (robson)
Alvidas: Mercury / Moon
Spectral Type
M1: comp
Appearance
A spectroscopic binary of two yellow giants in the arms of the Charioteer, the sixth brightest star in the sky
Behenian Correspondences
Gemstone
Sapphire
Plant
Thyme, horehound
Read: The 15 Behenian Stars → background on Agrippa's list, the magical tradition, and how each star was historically used.
Name Origin
Language
Latin
Original Form
Capella
Meaning
The Little She-goat
Alpha Aurigae. The Latin diminutive of capra (goat). Identified with Amalthea, the goat that nursed the infant Zeus on Crete. Pliny called it Capra, and the name Capella appears from the time of Manilius. The Greek name was Αἴξ (Aix, the Goat). Its heliacal setting in the Mediterranean marked the stormy season, earning it associations with tempests among Roman sailors.
Known As
Capella in Astrology
Capella, the She-Goat on the shoulder of Auriga the Charioteer, bestows curiosity, unconventional intelligence, and an insatiable love of learning. Its Mars-Mercury nature combines intellectual sharpness with the drive to pursue knowledge actively rather than passively. You are a perpetual student and teacher, drawn to multiple fields of inquiry and resistant to intellectual conformity. Capella grants versatility, wit, and a restless brilliance that thrives on novelty and discovery.
When Capella Is Angular
Capella carries additional weight when it falls on one of the chart angles, independent of any planet conjunction.
If Culminating
Capella culminating grants professional advancement through military, naval, religious, or institutional channels, though the native may struggle with wasteful habits and the envy of colleagues. The intellectual curiosity this star bestows is an asset in leadership roles, but it can also scatter focus and invite criticism. Success is most durable when the native channels Capella's restless mental energy toward a single sustained purpose.
Mythology & History
Capella, the Little She-Goat, takes its name from the Latin capra and represents the goat Amalthea who nursed the infant Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida when his mother Rhea hid him from the child-devouring Cronus. In gratitude, Zeus placed the goat among the stars and gave one of her horns to his nurses, creating the cornucopia or horn of plenty. The Babylonians knew this star as the charioteer's star, and in Hindu astronomy it was Brahma Hridaya, the Heart of Brahma. Ancient mariners considered it one of the most important navigation stars due to its brilliance and high northern position.
As a Behenian star, Capella was associated with sapphire and horehound, and its talismans were crafted to bring favor with rulers and public honor. Ptolemy assigned it the nature of Mars and Mercury, an energetic combination that produces sharp intelligence and busy enterprise. Medieval astrologers considered Capella highly fortunate, granting success through curiosity, communication, and mental agility. Its association with the cornucopia extended its reputation to abundance and the nourishment of others through one's gifts. Arabic astrologers knew it as a star of inquisitive, versatile talent.
Auriga Context
Capella is the brightest star in Auriga the Charioteer, a constellation the Greeks identified with Erichthonius, a legendary king of Athens who invented the four-horse chariot. Some traditions identify the charioteer with Myrtilus, the treacherous charioteer of King Oenomaus, or with Hephaestus, the lame smith god who built himself a chariot to compensate for his disability. Capella sits on the charioteer's left shoulder, and the small triangle of stars nearby represents the kids (baby goats) he carries. The constellation occupies a prominent position in the northern winter sky.
Learn more about Auriga and its stars.
Natal Conjunctions
Find your conjunctions →Capella Conjunct Sun
Capella conjunct the Sun creates an identity rooted in the joy of discovery and the drive to share what you have found. You are the eternal learner who becomes a natural teacher -- not because you seek authority, but because enthusiasm is your native language and knowledge wants to move through you outward. Your personality sparkles with the charioteer's versatile energy: quick, enterprising, impossible to pin down to a single pursuit, and genuinely nourished by the act of understanding something new.
Capella Conjunct Moon
Capella conjunct the Moon produces an emotional nature that nurtures through feeding -- literally and metaphorically. You instinctively provide what is needed: a meal, a book, an insight, a safe place to learn. The cornucopia myth runs deep in your emotional wiring, and your sense of security depends on having abundance to share. Maternal instincts express as an overflowing generosity that nourishes the curious, the hungry, and the lost. You process feelings through discovery, and emotional satisfaction arrives when you have helped someone grow.
Capella Conjunct Mercury
Capella conjunct Mercury amplifies intellectual gifts to their highest expression. The mind is quick, versatile, and genuinely brilliant, with an ability to grasp complex subjects rapidly and communicate them engagingly. You excel in fields requiring both analytical precision and creative thinking.
Capella Conjunct Venus
Capella conjunct Venus attracts through intellectual charm and wit. Relationships are stimulated by shared learning and mental companionship, and you are drawn to partners who expand your intellectual horizons. Aesthetic sensibility gravitates toward the clever, the innovative, and the intellectually playful.
Capella Conjunct Mars
Capella conjunct Mars channels aggressive energy into entrepreneurial drive and intellectual enterprise. You approach the world like the charioteer Erichthonius -- with practical ingenuity, competitive instinct, and the restless energy of someone who builds vehicles to go faster and farther. Debate is one outlet, but commerce, trade, and ambitious ventures are equally natural. You research tirelessly, negotiate fiercely, and treat every project as both an intellectual puzzle and a race to be won.
Capella Conjunct Jupiter
Capella conjunct Jupiter is the cornucopia made manifest. You possess an extraordinary capacity for abundance -- material, intellectual, spiritual -- and an instinct to overflow that abundance toward others. The goat Amalthea who nourished infant Zeus lives in your generosity: you feed people, whether with knowledge, resources, opportunity, or sheer optimism. Teaching and publishing bring recognition, but the deeper gift is your ability to make others feel that there is enough, that the horn of plenty does not run dry.
Capella Conjunct Saturn
Capella conjunct Saturn disciplines the restless intellect into sustained, deep scholarship. You learn that breadth without depth produces cleverness rather than wisdom, and over time build genuine mastery through patient, focused study. Academic and intellectual authority grows with age.
Capella Conjunct Uranus
Capella conjunct Uranus electrifies intellectual curiosity with radical originality. You make unexpected connections between fields and often pioneer interdisciplinary approaches that redefine entire subjects. Mental breakthroughs arrive as sudden flashes of comprehensive understanding.
Capella Conjunct Neptune
Capella conjunct Neptune infuses intellectual pursuits with imaginative and mystical dimensions. You are drawn to subjects that bridge science and spirit, and possess an intuitive understanding of abstract or metaphysical concepts that eludes purely rational minds.
Capella Conjunct Pluto
Capella conjunct Pluto drives intellectual curiosity to obsessive depths. You do not skim surfaces -- you bore into subjects with the relentless focus of a mind that must understand how things work at their most fundamental level. Knowledge becomes transformative power in your hands, and you are drawn to research that dismantles existing understanding and rebuilds it from the ground up. The charioteer's ingenuity combines with Pluto's intensity to produce breakthroughs that permanently alter how a subject is understood.
Capella Conjunct North Node
Capella conjunct the North Node marks a destiny oriented toward lifelong learning, teaching, and the joyful pursuit of diverse knowledge. The soul grows through intellectual breadth and the willingness to remain a perpetual student.
Capella Conjunct Ascendant
Capella on the Ascendant bestows a bright, intellectually engaging personality that draws others through wit and curiosity. You project an aura of lively intelligence, and the life path involves visible engagement with learning, teaching, or innovative thinking.
Capella Conjunct Midheaven
Capella on the Midheaven marks a career built on intellectual versatility and the capacity to bridge multiple fields. Professional success comes through innovation, teaching, or communication, and you are recognized for the breadth and originality of your thinking.
Paran Interpretations
Parans describe what happens when Capella and a planet simultaneously occupy the four angles (rising, culminating, setting, nadir) at a given location.
Capella in Paran with Sun
Rising
Capella rising with the Sun marks an individual born with insatiable curiosity and early intellectual precocity.
Culminating
Capella culminating with the Sun places intellectual achievement at the peak of public recognition.
Setting
Capella setting with the Sun indicates wisdom gathered from a lifetime of diverse learning, crystallizing in maturity.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with the Sun conceals a restless, brilliant mind that drives all outward accomplishment.
Capella in Paran with Moon
Rising
Capella rising with the Moon awakens emotional engagement with learning and discovery from the earliest years.
Culminating
Capella culminating with the Moon brings intellectual and emotional versatility to their highest public expression.
Setting
Capella setting with the Moon indicates deepening emotional wisdom through lifelong curiosity and mental engagement.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with the Moon harbors an emotionally charged intellect that processes experience through perpetual inquiry.
Capella in Paran with Mercury
Rising
Capella rising with Mercury bestows exceptional mental agility and communicative brilliance from childhood.
Culminating
Capella culminating with Mercury elevates intellectual and communicative gifts to career-defining prominence.
Setting
Capella setting with Mercury deepens analytical power over time, with the most original insights arriving in later years.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with Mercury conceals a mind of extraordinary versatility operating beneath conscious awareness.
Capella in Paran with Venus
Rising
Capella rising with Venus initiates early appreciation for the beauty of ideas and intellectual companionship.
Culminating
Capella culminating with Venus achieves recognition through aesthetically pleasing innovation or intellectually stimulating art.
Setting
Capella setting with Venus brings enduring relationships built on shared intellectual curiosity and mutual discovery.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with Venus conceals a deep love of learning that operates as the hidden driver of aesthetic taste.
Capella in Paran with Mars
Rising
Capella rising with Mars produces an actively curious individual who pursues knowledge with competitive energy from youth.
Culminating
Capella culminating with Mars achieves peak recognition through bold intellectual ventures and innovative action.
Setting
Capella setting with Mars channels assertive energy into sustained intellectual pursuits over a lifetime.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with Mars conceals fierce intellectual drive that powers all outward achievement.
Capella in Paran with Jupiter
Rising
Capella rising with Jupiter expands intellectual horizons from birth, granting early philosophical inclination.
Culminating
Capella culminating with Jupiter achieves widest influence through teaching, publishing, or philosophical innovation.
Setting
Capella setting with Jupiter brings expanding intellectual generosity and philosophical depth in the mature years.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with Jupiter builds on hidden foundations of vast intellectual curiosity and philosophical breadth.
Capella in Paran with Saturn
Rising
Capella rising with Saturn demands early intellectual discipline, channeling curiosity into focused study.
Culminating
Capella culminating with Saturn achieves lasting intellectual authority through decades of disciplined scholarship.
Setting
Capella setting with Saturn builds an enduring legacy of deep learning and scholarly contribution.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with Saturn establishes rigorous foundations of intellectual discipline beneath all creative work.
Capella in Paran with Ascendant
Rising
Capella rising with the Ascendant imprints the personality with visible intellectual sparkle and engaging curiosity.
Culminating
Capella culminating with the Ascendant projects mental agility and innovative thinking onto the broadest stage.
Setting
Capella setting with the Ascendant draws others who recognize and are stimulated by your intellectual vitality.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with the Ascendant grounds identity in deep reservoirs of intellectual energy and curiosity.
Capella in Paran with Midheaven
Rising
Capella rising with the Midheaven launches a career trajectory defined by intellectual innovation and versatile achievement.
Culminating
Capella culminating with the Midheaven represents the summit of professional recognition for intellectual contribution.
Setting
Capella setting with the Midheaven indicates a professional legacy of innovative thinking that inspires future scholars.
At the Nadir
Capella at the nadir with the Midheaven builds career success on hidden foundations of restless intellectual curiosity.
Notable Charts
Tom Hanks
Venus conjunct Capella
Embodies Capella's perpetual student-teacher energy through exhaustive research into every role, extraordinary artistic range, and consistently portraying wise mentors who guide others through crisis
Anne Frank
Sun conjunct Capella
Defined by Capella's Mars-Mercury themes of insatiable curiosity, fierce independence of mind under impossible circumstances, and an instinct to process experience through writing that became one of history's most influential diaries
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Capella mean in astrology?
Capella is one of the most fortunate fixed stars, carrying the nature of Mars and Mercury. It bestows a love of learning, curiosity, versatility, and the ability to achieve through intelligence rather than force. The name means 'little she-goat' and is associated with the goat Amalthea who nursed the infant Zeus.
What zodiac degree is Capella at in 2026?
Capella is at approximately 22 degrees 15 minutes of Gemini in 2026. Despite its high northern latitude of about 23 degrees, its ecliptic longitude places it firmly in the tropical sign of Gemini.
What does the name Capella mean?
The name Capella comes from Latin: Capella, meaning "The Little She-goat." Alpha Aurigae. The star is known by 6 different cultural names across world traditions.
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