Planetary symbols

Planetary symbols are used in astrology and traditionally in astronomy to represent a classical planet (which includes the Sun and the Moon) or one of the modern planets. The classical symbols were also used in alchemy for the seven metals known to the ancients, which were associated with the planets, and in calendars for the seven days of the week associated with the seven planets. The original symbols date to Greco-Roman astronomy; their modern forms developed in the 16th century, and additional symbols would be created later for newly discovered planets.

The seven classical planets, their symbols, days and most commonly associated planetary metals are:

celestial body	Moon	Mercury	Venus	Sun	Mars	Jupiter	Saturn
symbol
unicode	☾	☿	♀︎	☉	♂︎	♃	♄
day	Monday	Wednesday	Friday	Sunday	Tuesday	Thursday	Saturday
metal	silver	quicksilver	copper	gold	iron	tin	lead

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) discourages the use of these symbols in modern journal articles, and their style manual proposes one- and two-letter abbreviations for the names of the planets for cases where planetary symbols might be used, such as in the headings of tables.^[1] The modern planets with their traditional symbols and IAU abbreviations are:

planet	Mercury	Venus	Earth	Mars	Jupiter	Saturn	Uranus	Neptune
symbol
initial (IAU)	Me H[a]	V	E	Ma M[a]	J	S	U	N

The symbols of Venus and Mars are also used to represent female and male in biology following a convention introduced by Carl Linnaeus in the 1750s.

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