What is a Saturn return, and what is a solar return?
A return is the moment a planet comes back to the exact degree it occupied at your birth. The Sun returns every year near your birthday, Jupiter about every twelve years and Saturn about every twenty-nine and a half. The first Saturn return, in your late twenties, is the most talked-about.
One lap of the zodiac
Every planet goes round the zodiac at its own pace, so each one eventually comes back to the degree it occupied at your birth. That moment is its return. Astrologers draw a fresh chart for it, called a return or revolution chart, and read it beside the birth chart for the cycle that follows. 1
The solar return happens once a year on or within a day of your birthday, at the exact minute the Sun regains its birth degree. A lunar return comes about every 27 days. 1,2
Saturn and Jupiter
Saturn takes about 29.4 years to go round the Sun, so its first return comes at 29 or 30, the second near 59 and a third, for the long-lived, around 88. Because Saturn appears to loop backwards each year, a return can be exact up to three times over several months. 3
In modern astrology the first Saturn return is a byword for the end of youth: a reckoning with work, relationships and adult responsibility. The phrase has crossed into ordinary speech and pop songs. Astrologers describe it as a test and a consolidation, not a disaster.
Jupiter's orbit takes about twelve years, so its returns fall near 12, 24, 36 and so on. Being the planet of growth and good fortune in the tradition, it gets a much better press. 4
How the machine finds them
Calculated facts only, worked out the same way the machine does it.
- The machine steps through the years after your birth and finds every date Jupiter and Saturn came back to their exact birth longitude, bisecting each crossing to the day.
- Passes within 400 days of each other are grouped as one return, since a slow planet can cross the same degree up to three times while looping back.
- Saturn returns are counted from age 20, Jupiter returns from age 8.
Where the idea comes from
Era by era, with sources. More in the Reading Room.
Common misconceptions
“The Saturn return happens on your 29th birthday.” It depends on where Saturn was at your birth; it can come at 28, 29 or 30, sometimes spread over months. 3
“A solar return is the same as your birthday.” Close, but the exact minute can fall the day before or after, and the chart is drawn for that minute. 1
Questions people ask
Sources
- Returns (Revolution Chart), Skyscript, Glossary of Astrological Terms (Deborah Houlding). Read on .
- Moon: Facts, NASA Science. Read on .
- Saturn: Facts, NASA Science. Read on .
- Jupiter: Facts, NASA Science. Read on .
- 'Dicta Albumassar' by Abu Ma'shar, a Latin version of his Introduction to Astrology, 12th century, University of Edinburgh Archives and Manuscript Collections. Read on .