What the North Node symbol looks like
The North Node symbol is a single curved line shaped like a horseshoe: an arch closed at the top and open at the bottom, ending in two small circles. Turn it upside down, so the opening points up, and you have the South Node symbol. The two glyphs mark the two ends of one line across a birth chart, since the South Node always sits exactly opposite the North Node. Our North Node guide explains what the point is and how astrologers read it; this page is only about the sign that marks it.
On a chart wheel the symbol is small and easy to miss among the planets. Our birth chart calculator prints the North Node symbol on the wheel and leaves the South Node out, because it is always the same degree of the opposite sign. Some software draws both.
What the two symbols are called
The standard names are astronomical. Unicode, the standard that gives every character a number, lists the first as ASCENDING NODE and the second as DESCENDING NODE: the Moon crosses the Sun's path going north at one and going south at the other. Astrologers call the same two points the North Node and the South Node.
The older names are pictures. Wikipedia's list of astrological symbols records that the nodes are also known as the Dragon's Head, or Caput Draconis, and the Dragon's Tail, or Cauda Draconis, and gives Rahu and Ketu as the names used in Hindu astrology. Its article on the lunar node says the same: "The ascending node is referred to as the dragon's head", with the descending node as the dragon's tail. It is tempting to see the dragon in the glyph itself, a body arched upward for the head and hanging down for the tail. That can help you remember which is which, but it is our own memory aid and not a documented origin.
Where the symbols come from
They are old, and their meaning has flipped along the way. According to Wikipedia's article on astrological symbols, symbols for the planets, the signs, the aspects and the lunar nodes "appear in the medieval Byzantine codices in which many ancient horoscopes were preserved". Its article on astronomical symbols adds a detail that surprises most people: "the modern ascending node symbol (☊) formerly stood for the descending node", and the modern descending node symbol was used for the ascending one. So a medieval page and a modern chart can show the same glyph and mean opposite ends of the axis.
The same two characters had a second life outside astrology. Unicode's own notes on the characters list the first as an alchemical symbol for sublimation and the second as an alchemical symbol for purifying. Astronomy keeps a use for the first one too: in the description of an orbit it sometimes stands for the longitude of the ascending node, though the same Wikipedia article notes that a capital omega is more common.
How to copy or type the North Node symbol
The quickest way is the copy button under each drawing at the top of this page. If you would rather type the characters, each has a fixed number in Unicode, in the block called Miscellaneous Symbols:
| Symbol | Name | Unicode | HTML (decimal) | HTML (hex) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Node (ascending node) | U+260A | ☊ | ☊ | |
| South Node (descending node) | U+260B | ☋ | ☋ |
On Windows
In Word, WordPad and some other programs, type the code 260A and press Alt+X: the code turns into the North Node symbol. Use 260B for the South Node. The older trick of holding Alt and typing a number on the numeric keypad is not reliable for codes this high, so we do not recommend it here.
On a Mac
Add the keyboard layout called Unicode Hex Input in your keyboard settings and switch to it. Then hold the Option key and type 260A or 260B.
On Linux
On desktops that support it, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 260a and press Enter.
On a phone, or in a web page
On a phone, copying the symbol from this page is the simplest route. In HTML you can write the character as a numeric reference, with the decimal or the hexadecimal code from the table.
How the character looks depends on the fonts on the device that displays it. If you see an empty box instead of a glyph, that device has no font with the symbol. The character is still the right one, and it will show correctly wherever such a font is installed.
One symbol for the mean node and the true node
There are two ways to calculate the North Node, and the glyph does not tell you which was used. The mean node is an average that moves steadily backward through the zodiac; the true node follows the Moon's orbit as it is at that moment, and the two can sit up to about two degrees apart. Both are drawn with the same symbol. Chart software usually says which one it used in words, in a label such as Mean Node or True Node. Our charts use the mean node, and our North Node calculator shows both and tells you when they fall in different signs.
How to find the North Node symbol in your chart
Look for the horseshoe open at the bottom among the planet glyphs on the wheel. The sign it stands in is your North Node sign, and with a birth time the section of the wheel it falls in is its house. A chart that draws only one node, as ours does, draws the North Node: the South Node is at the same degree of the opposite sign, in the opposite house. If you do not have a chart to hand, the calculator below finds the node from your birth date, and the guide has a table of North Node signs from 1930 to 2030.