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A dedicated star
Antares
deep red · Scorpius · α Sco
Dedicated to
Maya
by Her sister, June · August 12, 2026
“You were born on the brightest night of my life. Whenever you feel small, remember: there is a star that has carried your name since before you could read it, and it is still up there, still burning, still yours.”
This dedication
- Dedicated to
- Maya
- Dedicated by
- Her sister, June
- Recorded
- August 12, 2026
- Held until
- August 12, 2027
When this dedication ends, Antares becomes available again. Want it? Put the date in your calendar.
Antares at a glance
- Constellation
- Scorpius
- Other name
- α Sco
- Catalogue number
- HIP 80763
- Distance
- ≈ 550 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 0.96 naked-eye
- Star type
- M1.5 Iab
- Colour
- deep red
- Best seen from
- The Southern Hemisphere and lower northern latitudes
- Right ascension
- 16h 29m 24s
- Declination
- −26° 25′ 55″
J2000 catalogue coordinates that can be independently cross-checked against astronomical databases. A planetarium app showing coordinates of date will differ slightly, because proper motion and precession move a star’s apparent position over time.
What kind of star is Antares?
Antares is a red supergiant. Its surface runs under 4,000°C, which is cool as stars go and why the colour is unmistakably red. Colour in a star is a temperature reading rather than a decoration: the hot ones are blue and the cool ones red, the opposite way round to a kitchen tap.
Its colour is not the whole story. A red star still in the steady part of its life would burn for longer than the universe has yet existed. This one is past that stage, and it is cool at the surface because it has swollen outward, not because it was born this way.
It is a supergiant, which means it has left the stable part of its life and swollen enormously. Put it where the Sun is and its surface would swallow the inner planets. Stars this size do not fade quietly; this one will end as a supernova, and on a human timescale that could be tonight or in a million years.
The light you are looking at is old
Antares is about 550 light years away, so the light reaching you now set out around 1476. You are not looking at the star as it is. You are looking at the star as it was, and there is no way to see it any other way.
That delay is the part people find hardest and like most. A star is the one thing you can give someone that was already old before either of you was born and will outlast anything else you could have chosen.
It is also one of the brighter stars in the sky, which is why it carries a proper name at all rather than a catalogue number.
What does the name Antares mean?
Antares is Greek: anti-Ares, “rival of Mars.” When the red planet passes through Scorpius, the two face each other, and the star does not blink.
Where can you see Antares?
It is easy to see from much of the Southern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower northern latitudes, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 64°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 26°S. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 0.96 it is bright enough to hold its own over city lights.
Antares belongs to Scorpius, where it is the brightest star.
What does Antares mean in astrology?
The "heart of the Scorpion", a Persian royal star, watcher of the west, and the classical rival of Mars. Its name means "like Ares". The tradition reads it as intensity itself: courage, obsession, all-or-nothing turns of fortune.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Antares stands at 9° Sagittarius at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 28 November in the years around 2000. Fixed-star longitude shifts slowly against the tropical zodiac because of precession, about one degree every seventy-two years, so a natal conjunction must be calculated for the birth year rather than read off this J2000 value or a calendar date.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions. The position and dates are computed.
Frequently asked questions about Antares
- What does Antares mean in astrology?
- The "heart of the Scorpion", a Persian royal star, watcher of the west, and the classical rival of Mars. Its name means "like Ares". The tradition reads it as intensity itself: courage, obsession, all-or-nothing turns of fortune. Projected onto the zodiac, Antares stands at 9° Sagittarius, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 28 November.
- Is Antares the brightest star?
- Antares shines at magnitude 0.96 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Antares?
- Antares is approximately 550 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 550 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Antares?
- Antares is the brightest star in Scorpius.
- Can everyone see Antares?
- It is easy to see from much of the Southern Hemisphere. It can also appear from lower northern latitudes, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 64°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 26°S. It stands highest at midnight in May, so May and June evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 0.96 it is bright enough to hold its own over city lights.
- Is dedicating Antares an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Antares keeps its internationally recognised astronomical name. An AsterNym dedication records your personal name and message in the AsterNym registry without changing the star's scientific identity.
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